


Blackpool

by TheDivineComedian



Series: leave no stone unturned (a series of standalones) [12]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Andromeda is such a Slytherin, Angst, Artist!Sirius, Child Abuse, Coming of Age, Gaslighting, Gen, It's like they found their kids in their Weetabix one morning, Kreacher is spying on them, Light Horror, M/M, Mindfuck, Orion Black's A+ Parenting, Slytherins sure love their magical diaries, Snape is spying on them, Walburga Black's A+ Parenting, Warnings inside, but he has like 99 problems, ghost story, so he doesn't have time to think about it, the portraits are spying on them, think Regulus might be asexual in this one, why can Sirius see Thestrals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-05-14 02:13:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 63,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14760663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDivineComedian/pseuds/TheDivineComedian
Summary: "We don’t drown. Wefloat. That’s how Muggles used to tell, isn’t it?"-When Regulus is five, he nearly drowns in the sea off Blackpool.When Regulus is eleven, his brother befriends a ghost.It’s not until Regulus is eighteen and ready to die that the Black family’s darkest secret finally unravels. It might, perhaps, change everything.(A coming-of-age story with mind magic, star charting, pink petit-fours, two diaries, and a ghost.)[Edit: SPOILERS in the comments.]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Notes** : I wanted to take a closer look at how the Black brothers grew into at least partially functioning adults – but then it turned into a ghost story. Very tentatively aligned with _Still Life with Skull_ and _They're Hiding Inside Me_.
> 
>  **Warnings** (for the whole story): physical and mental child abuse (on-screen, intermittent at first, fairly drawn-out and disturbing later on), some victim blaming, death by drowning, gaslighting, panic attacks, homophobia, and a suicide attempt by a teenager. This story is not _only_ dark, but... yeah, it's dark. Though some good things do happen!
> 
>  **Feedback** : Yes, please. I love hearing from you :)

They summer in Blackpool. It's a family tradition.

The summer Regulus turns five, he nearly drowns in the Irish Sea, or so they tell him. He can't even remember that day, but it enters the Black family anecdote collection just the same, told over and over, five hundred versions of the same event. They will smile and eat canapés ("Remember that one time when") or take a stroll along the seafront ("just tripped over air and fell off the pier") or taste rare whiskeys in front of the fireplace ("splash like someone dropped a -"). Maybe that's why he always moves so carefully now – like the world is made of slippery planks. His mother nibbles a praline ("At least one of the boys showed accidental magic that day. Of course, with him we knew since he was three"), while Regulus turns embarrassed and Sirius just turns quiet.

Regulus's own magic kicks in a few months later at Andromeda's birthday party, when he levitates a plate her personal house-elf drops. He feels sorry for stealing her spotlight, but she smirks and tells him it's all right.

Walburga doesn't lose any time. That next Sunday, she takes his first milk tooth and performs the ritual that binds his name to the tapestry, and the tapestry to him. It's the first time he's allowed in the drawing room, and it smells of mothballs and carpet shampoo and the heaviness of centuries. He knows his parents are talking, but he's not listening, too taken in is he with the vast maze that is his family. He understands more about his family in one morning than he has in all the years of his life put together, tracing the tapestry with his fingers, wherever he can reach, notes the regularities, the constellations, the recurrences. Fourteenth, sixteenth, nineteenth century. Regulus, Arcturus. They've been there before him, and they will come around again. He says the names under his breath. Sirius, Orion. Cygnus. Pollux. Altair. He's been told this before, of course, but he understands, for the first time, that one star doesn't make a night sky.

But many do.

His mother addresses him directly, and immersed as he is, he has a sixth sense dedicated entirely to that. He looks up, but she's not bitter today, no. She's _happy_. It makes him glow, too. "And when you die," says Walburga, "the tapestry will know before anyone else."

Behind her, seven-year-old Sirius pulls a face, and Regulus laughs.

* * *

Walburga tells the story differently after Sirius's first year in Hogwarts ("Remember that one time when Regulus nearly"), there's less pride in Walburga's voice, more we-should-have-seen-this-coming ("Of course, Sirius couldn't stay out of the spotlight for even a"); she butters a crumpet, gliding seamlessly into a different topic already ("Anyway, Orion, you were saying the Ministry ought to"), taking as given their full, quiet compliance with this revised history.

Surprise. Sirius is a Gryffindor now, and don't anyone forget it for even a second. "You pushed him off the pier!" he shouts over breakfast, and all hell breaks loose. He hasn't even been back twelve hours.

Regulus is the only one who remains quiet, for all the good it'll still do, eyes fixed on his soft-boiled egg. That's not how it happened, he tells himself, Sirius is lying, he wasn't _pushed_ , he _fell_ , and even if, it was a test.

It's the first day of the summer holidays, Regulus's birthday and he's _eleven_. It's a day he's looked forward to since Easter because Sirius home means a break from boring calligraphy lessons, it means laughter and exploring the dusty attic and vertical Quidditch in the garden and the sort of games that their mother claims turn her hair grey. (The brothers may or may not have turned it into a competition – but alas, their mother's hair remains as thick and black as ever.)

Instead, Sirius spends the rest of the morning in the study with Father, and the rest of the day in his room, and except for the tight press of Walburga's lips, it's as if Sirius hasn't come home at all. Regulus opens a pile of birthday presents and letters under the hawk eye of his mother. They're exquisite and thoughtful; a week later, he hardly remembers them. Only two stick in mind: The Hogwarts letter, perched on top of the pile, and cousin Andromeda's present, wrapped in a glittering star chart. It's a diary and so plain it looks almost Muggle, but it's not.

("It's bigger on the inside," she tells him later, "You'll never run out of pages. And you can teach it a pass-phrase so no-one else can read it. Think of something clever, Reggie."

"But what do I write?" says Regulus. For all the calligraphy lessons in the world, he doesn't think enough happens in Grimmauld Place to warrant writing down. "Things you learn," says Andromeda. "Things you experience. Things you do not wish to forget." She winks.)

He decides to humour her – besides, Sirius has the same diary, got it from Andromeda when he turned eleven the November before last, and Regulus likes having the same things as his brother. He makes up a pass-phrase ("Toujours Pur"), and he writes down that story he doesn't quite get, that summer day he can't remember. Five hundred versions of the same anecdote.

He supposes the diary must be magic, because the next time he opens it, all the stories have turned into just one: The one his mother has been telling all the time ("Remember that time when Regulus tripped over air –").

* * *

They go to Blackpool again that summer, Regulus and Sirius and their parents, and Narcissa and Andromeda and their parents, all except Bellatrix, who says she is busy with her volunteer work, and Regulus could swear his aunt and uncle breathe a sigh of relief. All the more space, and slightly more peace, in the Black summer residence, which doubles as a 19th century hotel, or rather: It's a 19th century hotel, except the hotel owner doesn't know it doubles as the Black summer residence. Does keep it tidy, though.

The Blacks enjoy the proximity of Muggles, but not to mingle, on the contrary: Life is a work of art, and theirs is full of sharp contrasts, discordant notes. They enhance the differences.

Black Pier is private. You have to be a Black by blood or marriage, or you'll just walk past it. That's where they are now, Sirius and Regulus. Ten p.m. has come and gone, it's really rather shockingly late, and even though Regulus can feel the tiredness pulling at his bones, daring him to bunch up his cloak and take a nap on the wooden boards, he's a bit giddy - too many raspberry lemonades and gummi flobberworms will do that to an eleven-year-old - and no-one has been shouting at them in two days, largely because it's so much easier to stay out of their parents' hair when they're here.

It's a rare warm summer's night, the sky still in bright twilight. If the brothers are lucky, the stars will come out before they are called to bed, before the still nearly full moon rises in the east and obliterates everything in its wake. Regulus is already fixating on a point over the see, far away in the west, where he knows his namesake star is hurtling towards to horizon, chasing after the setting sun.

To pass the time, Sirius has his diary open, and he is trying to bewitch a quill to draw the sea, the rippling, foaming, swirling waves below them. It'd be a feat and a half even if he drew it himself, Regulus supposes. Not happy with the accuracy, Sirius flips over a new page occasionally.

"Just wait till you get to Hogwarts," says Sirius. "Those winter nights are proper dark. Not like stupid London. Pitch black, and long. Winter term is brilliant for Astronomy." He shows no sign of tiredness. "Of course, it rains."

Only Sirius could sell Scottish winter as a feature. To be fair, very nearly everything he's said about Hogwarts has made Regulus want to go even more. Hard to believe it's just two more months now.

"Terrible," says Regulus with all the sarcasm a newly eleven-year-old can muster. "To imagine a place where it rains constantly! What is this, Britain?"

Sirius bops him. "I hear the damp is worse in Slytherin," he says, watching the quill dance over the page. "Underground, see. You'll grow fungus on your hair and algae between your toes."

Regulus remains still. He can't imagine finally going to Hogwarts, only to be separated from his brother. Coincidentally, he also can't imagine ending up anywhere but in Slytherin. Because, come on, Sirius's sorting was a fluke, wasn't it?

"Underground," he says. "Exactly. Gryffindor tower is far closer to the weather. Besides," he adds uncertainly, "Cissy and Andy have very good hair." He hasn't checked their toes, though. Blast. Maybe he should ask the Sorting Hat for clarification first –

A shudder runs through him as he imagines the Sorting Hat saying, "Questions already? Better be RAVENCLAW!" No, he's just going to sit still. Is sitting still a Slytherin trait? Is begging? Sirius says he tried that. Didn't work. So maybe begging is out.

Above them, the first faint stars blink into existence. But the twilight remains, an eerie glow that seems to come from the sea itself. Of course, this is the Black Pier, been in the family for generations. Who knows what magic it might have soaked up?

This is probably perfectly normal.

"This is weird," says Sirius, and Regulus is secretly relieved.

"It is, isn't it," says Regulus. "It's not just me?"

Sirius, already sat at the edge of the pier, crawls forward, hypnotising the luminous water. It looks extraordinarily dangerous from Regulus's point of view, but then, he did almost drown once.

"Hm," says Sirius, and leans in.

Regulus yelps. "You'll fall!"

"Shall I tell you a secret?" says Sirius. He turns around and winks conspiratorially. "My mate James taught me how to swim in the Great Lake. He said it was ridiculous, not being able to swim. Said it was old-fashioned and stupid."

"But that's – that's a Muggle thing!" says Regulus. "Don't let Mother find out!"

"Promise," says Sirius. "I'll just drown quietly like a good little Pureblood." He returns his attention to the water.

"We don't drown," says Regulus. "We _float_. That's how Muggles used to tell, isn't it?"

Sirius, of course, disregards his compelling logic. "I really think you should see this," he says.

Torn between curiosity and a sudden, embarrassing, quite all-consuming terror, Regulus crawls forward, inch by inch, until he's flat on his stomach, peering over the edge.

There's a body in the water.

Regulus is quite glad he's lying down already, because he is just about ready to keel over. He jerks back, but too late, that image is burned on the inside of his eyes, already as familiar as the night sky: A child, pale and luminous, drifting face-up in the Irish Sea, eyes wide open and dark as bruises, features blurred like an unfinished watercolour.

While Regulus quietly contemplates whether to start hyperventilating, Sirius remains unfazed.

"Relax, it's just a ghost," he says. "There are plenty of ghosts at Hogwarts."

"Yes, but –" says Regulus, collecting his thoughts. "But this one's dead!"

He hasn't encountered many ghosts in his life. Grimmauld Place is warded against them, from the top of its roof to the last corner of its ramified cellar, otherwise that house would attract ghosts like nobody's business.

"They're _all_ dead, Reg," Sirius points out. "In fact, those at Hogwarts all died quite horribly. They're still nice people." He pulls a face. "Except the Slytherin ghost, he's a bit of a jerk."

"But this one's proper dead," says Regulus. "He doesn't even move."

Sirius considers this, then lies down flat on his stomach and extends a hand to the surface of the water. It doesn't quite reach, but the odd light – and Regulus knows now it's the ghost's luminous soul – engulfs Sirius's hand.

"Hey there, buddy," says Sirius. "You look like you need a friend."

"Oh god, don't touch the dead child," moans Regulus. Sirius might think ghosts are harmless. Regulus just assumes there's a very, very good reason Grimmauld Place is so thoroughly warded against them.

Doesn't mean he can look away. The ghost turns his head, slowly, slowly, and those lifeless, bruised eyes lock with Sirius's. His face, blurred as it is, changes – there's something like alertness now. Something like recognition. The ghost lifts his hand and tries to grasp Sirius's, but it passes right through. This, apparently, causes him great distress, judging by what is unmistakeably a sob. Ghost water splashes as he tries again and again.

"It's okay, it's okay," says Sirius. "You just have to imagine. Close your eyes and imagine you're taking my hand, I'll help you out."

It's weird. "Soothing" is probably the last word Regulus would use to describe his brother's typical demeanour, but the ghost child calms down somewhat. After Sirius has helped a very distraught ghost scramble onto the pier, he turns to Regulus and whispers, "He's not very good at this, I don't think he's been dead very long."

"But that's –" says Regulus. "That's so sad. Isn't it sad? Should we tell someone?"

The ghost is still crying. He's sitting between them now, gasping for air, soaked and pale and translucent. He's wearing wizard robes, that much Regulus can make out, but the details escape him. Pale face, dark hair like seaweed, rail-thin body hunched over, making him look even smaller than he is.

Regulus tries to remember what he learned about ghosts: Pure imagination, all mind, no body; they have to make an effort to keep up their appearance. Maybe this child can't, or doesn't know how. Maybe one day he'll blur into fog.

Through that translucent head, Regulus can see Sirius make a worried face. It's very far from his usual face. "What happened to you?" he asks quietly.

Another sob. "Fell," says the ghost. "I think. Slipped and fell. Clumsy. I couldn't – I couldn't –" He shrugs slightly. "Drowned."

Something constricts in Regulus's throat. It's just a word, he tells himself. And drowning is just water.

"Do you remember when?" he says, and he can see Sirius has the same question. Maybe someone's missing this kid.

"Ages. A hundred million years," sniffs the kid. "So alone."

Sirius holds out a hand. The child stares at him blankly, but Sirius just nods. "Imagine," he says. And the kid reaches out and sort of grasps it. "Almost," he says.

Inspired, Regulus reaches for his other hand. The touch isn't quite a touch, it's a cool breeze in the rare summer heat – a reminder of how things usually are. Like stepping from the blistering street into cool, dark Grimmauld Place. And like in Grimmauld Place, he has to be careful, controlled, or he'll fall right into that frigid presence and all pretence is lost.

The ghost looks down on his hands, then turns to Regulus. "I'm sorry I scared you," he says, his voice slightly less wobbly. "But I heard you talk about Hogwarts. Are you two wizards?"

Regulus nods. "Are you?"

"There are never any wizards or witches here," says the kid. "And the Muggles always get so scared when they see me, so I try not to be there – I dissolve – I'm there but I'm not and it's _scary_ \- "

And there he goes again.

"What's your name?" says Regulus.

"I _dissolve_ ," says the child. "I'm water. I'm a light on the waves. I don't know! What's yours?"

"Regulus," says Regulus. "And this is my brother, Sirius. Like the stars?"

"Regulus," the child whispers under his breath. "Sirius. Like the stars." He repeats the names a few more time, like he's trying them on. "Will you be my friends?"

He looks at them, and blurry as he is, there's so much hope in that lonely face. Regulus can't help it, he's still a little sceptical. He's never had a ghost friend. Or any friend, apart from Kreacher, really.

"Course," says Sirius. "I love making friends!"

He has to nudge Regulus, who mutters his assent.

The child smiles.

"Brilliant," says Sirius. "We're supposed to visit the haunted house up in Fleetwood tomorrow and it's _boring_ , you should come! It'll be a million times better with a proper ghost –"

"Oh, there you are," calls a voice, distorted through distance and the bustle from the seafront, and the brothers turn their heads guiltily. On the end of the pier is a woman, a mere silhouette, tall, imposing, and worst of all, advancing quickly. She must have seen the ghost, or at least the light.

"Mother?" mouths Sirius, a worried expression on his face.

The child squeals. "I dissolve," he murmurs. "I dissolve, I dissolve –"

"No, wait," says Sirius. "Stay! That's Andromeda, she's harmless –"

But the ghost falls forward, into the water, expanding, thinning out, like a dust cloud. Out of reflex, Sirius scrambles up and grasps for him. This achieves exactly nothing except that he kicks his diary into the sea, and Sirius curses, using words that would have earned him a scouring charm straight to the mouth, had Walburga listened.

But the ghost is gone, leaving nothing but foam on the waves and massive confusion.

Sirius stares at the green waves that swallowed his diary. "Well, that was odd," he says. Eventually.

"Think he'll come to Fleetwood tomorrow?" says Regulus.

Sirius just shakes his head. A flick of his wand summons the diary, but it's soaked, of course. He flips through the pages, tries to get them to unstick, and his fingers go grey with diluted ink. He's still staring, like he stared at the sea a moment ago – like he's trying hard not to remain attached to a gone thing.

"Oh, don't worry about it," says Andromeda, who has finally caught up with them. "It's protected against all sorts of stuff – just leave it alone, it'll soak up what it needs and expel the rest."

"Soak up what it needs?" repeats Sirius. "It's a diary!"

"Yes, and a diary keeps things, doesn't it?" says Andromeda. "By the way, your mother sent me to find you. Apparently it's your bedtime."

"She said we could watch the stars," says Regulus, trying out a tiny dose of defiance. It's easier with Andromeda than with their mother.

"And?"

"They're only just coming out!"

"Well then," says Andromeda, a twinkle of mischief in her eyes. "Seeing as I am a responsible adult, I'm sure she won't mind if I let you stay for a little while longer."

Sirius pokes his tongue at her. "You are so smug for having turned seventeen, aren't you," he says.

"Cheeky, my favourite Gryffindor toerag," says Andromeda.

Sirius grins. "Slytherin _hag_."

"You want to watch stars, ickle firstie? Let's see what you've got. Where's Andromeda?"

"Looming dangerously above us," says Sirius. "Come on, is that all you've got?"

"Orion?"

"Ah," says Sirius. "Trick question. Other side of the planet. Phew!"

"Along with _your_ namesake, so I wouldn't count my ducks just yet," says Andromeda. She fires off a list – their entire family, along with a number of stars that no-one has been crazy enough to use as baby names yet. Deneb. Antares. Cassiopeia. Camelopardalis. Boötes. Sirius gets them perfectly. Regulus is good, too, if a bit shaky on the finer points.

The first time they falter is with Altair. Sirius squints up at the sky.

"I always forget that one," he says. "To be fair, Great-Uncle Altair was one ugly troll. His portrait always pops into my mind when I hear the name and then I get distracted by the lichen."

Andromeda snorts softly, ladylike. "Regulus?" she says.

"Great-Uncle Altair wasn't an ugly troll," says Regulus, "he had a very serious condition –"

"Indeed. Turns out you can't mainline Gillyweed the way he did and expect to retain your youthful complexion," says Andromeda, and Sirius snickers. "The star, though. It's one of three, look? Deneb, Vega, and Altair. The summer triangle."

As she points them out in the sky, one hand on Regulus's shoulder, there's a sort of muffled yelling in the distance, yellow flashes of blatant localisation spells on the Muggle beach. "Oh, where is that infernal –", and when they look up, they see Walburga striding towards them on the pier.

"Whoops," says Andromeda. "Guess I was supposed to take you home right away. God, but their parlour games bore me to _tears_."

Regulus swallows as their mother approaches. He swears she can make herself about twice as heavy as she is, just by striding in anger, each step of her delicate pointed leather shoes jolting the pier. His brother looks about as relaxed as he feels.

"Auntie Walburga," says Andromeda in her most sincere voice. "I'm sorry, I forgot the time – your sons are such a delight, have I told you?"

Walburga absolutely, positively, looks like she is going to explode. Messily. With casualties. Her quick hand is hidden away just underneath the surface, but Andromeda is beaming at her, and that is a boundary Walburga has not yet crossed.

"It's hours past their bedtime," she scoffs. "So worried – irresponsible – boys, come with me."

Sirius picks up his diary, still dripping sea water, but Walburga snatches it out of his hands, flips through it. The heavy parchment is holding its shape, doesn't tear despite her less than careful handling, but the ink is still running off the pages in thick droplets. Not that the diary would show her anything but gibberish, since she doesn't have the pass-phrase.

"Such a tasteful gift, Andromeda," she says sweetly. "But perhaps not for a clumsy boy like Sirius. Ruined already, I see." It passes whatever superficial inspection she is administering, and she presses it back into Sirius's hands.

"Oh, that's quite all right, Auntie Walburga," says Andromeda. "Diaries are more for writing than for reading, anyway." She winks at the boys, then links her arm with Walburga's, leading her away from the sea. "Now, you were telling a fascinating story about the end-of-year school governors' meeting –"

The brothers set off after Walburga and Andromeda, hanging back for as long as they dare. Still, Sirius raises a finger to his lips, and Regulus understands: The ghost is a secret now, not just tonight, but forever. The way their parents have warded Grimmauld Place against ghosts, they will exorcise the Black Pier in a heartbeat, and then where will that little drowned boy go?

Regulus mouths the word under his breath: _Forever_. He catches a last glimpse at the sky above. Stars are forever. Ghosts are forever, too, he supposes.

A hundred million years, at least.

* * *

The ghost doesn't come to Fleetwood the next day. In fact, even though they spend many more evenings on the Black Pier, they don't see hide nor hair of him for the reminder of their holidays. Sirius watches the waves like a hawk, but nothing – no light, no shine, no drifting child. Regulus starts to think the ghost is a figment of their imagination, a false memory, or maybe a mirage, a magic reflection that turned up hundreds of miles from where it belonged.

Meanwhile, Sirius's diary is starting to dry out, but it still leaks occasionally. Every morning, they find it sitting in a puddle of ink-grey water, and whenever Sirius tries to write in it, the words branch and blur and vanish.

The next time Walburga tells the anecdote of how Regulus nearly drowned when he was five, they're most of the way through their farewell dinner. They're the only party in the hotel's glass-roofed dining hall, beads of sweat on their foreheads, warm evening light dancing on the cutlery and refracting in the decanters full of port. Only a day now until they're back in cool, shadowy Grimmauld Place.

Of course, remarks Walburga over her coffee, Sirius just tripped over nothing, clumsy boy, fell into his brother and off the pier Regulus tumbled, oh those rambunctious boys, you wouldn't understand, Cygnus, with your three charming girls; mine are quite the handful, _did I say something funny, Andromeda?_

Andromeda smiles into her gold-rimmed coffee cup. "Forgive me, Auntie," she says. "It's just such a riveting tale," and Regulus doesn't know where to look. He feels, with practised ease, that his heart picks up speed, that his ears resonate with the distant rumble of the sea – but that must be the coffee, he thinks.

After dinner, Regulus and Sirius are sent to an early bed. The room they share in the Blackpool hotel is a plush affair with a view of the seafront, overlooked by a large and frighteningly ugly painting of their late Great-Aunt Vulpecula, who is ever so cranky. Regulus reckons it's because she has to pretend to be a Muggle painting for the majority of the year. Sirius says she's just a miserable old hag. Either way, they ought to have guessed sooner – but it has taken them eight holidays in Blackpool and many an inexplicable telling-off by their parents until they figured out the old biddy is spying on them, too.

Changing into his pyjamas, Regulus is half ignoring, half composing a head full of thoughts that he needs to share with his brother. Because, frankly, what _is_ it with these anecdotes his mother tells? He feels like he should know this story by now, having nearly died in it, but every time, it's like he hears it for the first time.

He drops his braces to the floor, not on purpose, he's just on edge, but it's still _loud_ , and his great aunt turns her painted head towards the commotion, fiddling with an old-fashioned ear trumpet. Suddenly he can't help himself anymore. "Seriously, she's about two hundred," he whispers as softly as he can, "can't she just take a nap now and again?"

Sirius, already in bed and thumbing through his diary, which Vulpecula is fortunately too blind to see, graces him with a soft laugh. "Tomorrow," he mouths.

Regulus flops down on his own bed – if nothing else, he's definitely dramatic enough for Slytherin, even if the thought of his impending Sorting fills him with clammy dread. But instead of sleeping, he grows more restless by the minute, all senses assaulted, unable to ignore a thing – the evening sun is lighting up their room like a Quidditch pitch, despite the threadbare curtains, and between the thick carpet and the lush pillows and the luxurious sheets, it's stifling hot. The stale air smells of dust and mothballs and the bag of Every Flavour Beans melting into a confused clump somewhere in Sirius's suitcase. Even the soft sounds of parchment and quill from the other bed feel alien and too, too much, like he hears them with his fingernails.

Sirius's diary is full of wonders, but Regulus's own is dreadfully bare. He hasn't looked at it in weeks, but since sleep isn't coming, he gets it out, intending to pen the anecdote his mother told over dinner, that thing that keeps eluding him. Maybe that will keep the room from closing in on him.

To his mild surprise (it really is rather ridiculously warm, and his brain feels overwrought and stupid), tonight's story is already in there, and he re-reads his words, almost a memory, written in his own careful script: How Sirius tripped over air and fell into him. How he dropped off the pier like a stone. How his mother lifted him out of the water with a levitation charm, Vanished the water in his lungs, wrapped him in a warm wind to dry him and stop the shivers.

Regulus reads it six times. He looks at those words until they blur and dance on the page, and makes an honest attempt at remembering that day. He thinks back to the summer he turned five. He thinks back to pumpkin ice cream cones and gummi flobberworms and the Black Pier in the setting sun. He thinks back to the smell of fried fish on the beach, of salt and algae on the pier. But they come to Blackpool every year, how could he possibly pick out one summer, one single day -

He reads the words again, careful cursive, all joined together, they link up, form a ladder, no, a thread, and he pulls, and he pulls: One summer. Three days of sun snatched up in three weeks of overcast skies. One of those days is gone forever, cut out like weed from a garden, but now, like weed, it has spread.

He's been here before, he suddenly knows, in those forgetful moments before he sleeps or after he wakes, on the trailing edge of a dream, when he is calm and cold and weightless, and there's a pressure all round his chest and arms and legs, and the ceiling looks wonky, as if he sees it from the bottom of a lake.

Adrift again, his thoughts turn smooth and shallow, everything tilted towards that hole in his memory, that single death-shaped day – and for once, it feels easy, the easiest thing in the world, to just let go, let everything _slide_ and _crash_ and _fall_ –

Sirius thinks he's scared of water. Regulus knows he's not scared enough.

He's flat on his back now and it's dark and he breathes, still, against the pressure, as if millions of litres of water are pushing his chest down.

The sound of feet padding over the carpet. A creak of the window and air flows, finally, carrying the laughter of tourists and the roar of the sea. A dent in his bed as someone sits down. Soft press of a hand on his chest, right over his runaway heart – and he can't even say why that helps, maybe he's not being compressed, maybe it's the opposite, maybe he's just expanding now, like a balloon, like a deep-sea fish brought to the surface - until the water around him retreats, coalesces into just a mattress and humid air and tangled sheets, and he doesn't have to work so hard just to breathe anymore.

Oh, the portrait will definitely tell on them, but there's nothing he can do about it now.

"Nightmare?" says Sirius.

Regulus feels like he's run a marathon. Yet he sits, snapping up like a flick knife, one more second on his back and surely that heavy mattress will swallow him whole. His diary tumbles to the floor. "Yeah," he breathes. It's close enough to the truth.

"Budge over," says Sirius, and settles in next to him. "Here, this'll cheer you right up."

Regulus is conscious of his sweat-soaked sheets, his still-racing heart, but Sirius doesn't seem to mind. He drapes an arm around Regulus and flips through his own diary. It's darker now, only the Muggle lights outside their window illuminate the room. Still, Regulus can see that Sirius's diary has recovered from being dropped into the sea: The ink is back in place, crisper than before, the writing, the drawings, the maps; the parchment is strong and smooth.

"That's brilliant, Sirius," he mumbles, head lolling forward. He really is quite tired, after all. Sirius's diary is open on one of those drawings he made when they were out on the pier two weeks ago, when he was trying to enchant his quill to draw the waves all by itself. Those lines are moving now, faint ripples in a soft breeze.

"No, here, I mean –" says Sirius, then thinks for a moment before pulling Regulus's neglected sheets over both of them, and for a moment Regulus can't see a thing. Then his eyes adjust.

"Oh," says Regulus.

"Can you see it?"

In the utter darkness beneath the sheets, there's a faint silvery glow coming from those pages: A shine on the waves, a light on the water.

There are maybe thirty of these wave drawings, one after the other, and Sirius turns the pages slowly. It's on every page. Just reflexes on the waves, seemingly random, wherever the rippling currents would throw them.

"How did you _do_ that," breathes Regulus.

"Didn't," says Sirius. "Look."

Sirius is thumbing through the pages now, like one would a flip-book, and the reflexes run together. Mesmerised, Regulus thinks of constellations: Two-dimensional shapes to make sense of a three-dimensional sky.

And just for a flash, there's a shape in the water: Eyes like bruises, hair like seaweed, a blur of a face. Like walking past a mirror in the dark.

They stare down at the undulating waves, and just for a heartbeat, the ghost stares back.

* * *

_To be continued_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for reading and commenting and kudos-ing! Since my weekend plans fell through, what with the _lovely_ weather, I had ample time to write and edit - so here is chapter 2! As usual, I am very happy about feedback in all shapes and sizes :)

Regulus is eleven years and two months and seven days now, and rain is just water that forgot its place, always rushing, falling, chasing off the short London summer. The window panes are awash with it, and he watches fat droplets race each other, until the screaming subsides.

He gives them ten more minutes as he carefully puts on the clothes Kreacher has laid out for him, the pressed trousers, the starched shirt, the new bespoke robes. He dances, as he does it, around the hexed floorboard that'll vanish his leg for a day or two if he steps on it, a slow choreography, muscle memory. Regulus wonders if he'll still know where it is come Christmas. Merlin knows Sirius sets off all of Grimmauld Place's traps when he returns for the holidays, like he doesn't remember, or doesn't care.

Sirius invites disaster. Regulus just dances around its edges.

When Regulus comes down to breakfast, it's just himself and his parents. Ridding his face of all evidence of drowning dreams and underwater silence, he bids them a Good Morning, and settles in his chair.

His mother's face relaxes when she sees him. "Good morning, Regulus," she says. His father echoes the sentiment, and Kreacher pours them coffee. The table is only laid for three, and Regulus wonders what Sirius has done today to disqualify himself from breakfast. He strongly suspects the earlier screaming duel in the hall has something to do with it.

They don't usually talk during mealtimes, and Regulus spreads butter and honey on a warm bun, cracks his egg with a spoon. The silence should be uncomfortable, and it is, but he's used to it.

He eats his bun and picks up a second, as if that's something he usually does. The only one who notices this break from routine is Kreacher, who surreptitiously hands him a fresh napkin since his has a coffee stain on it.

"Big day today," says his mother, breaking tradition, and he was wrong: _Now_ it's uncomfortable.

"Yes, Mother," he says dutifully, looking into her face to distract her from his hands, which are spreading butter and honey again, thick and sticky.

"Remember what we discussed," she says with a laugh that sounds airy but is the opposite. "Another surprise like last year – I don't know if my poor constitution will survive."

Her constitution seems to have survived just fine, Regulus thinks, if the ferocity of her earlier fight with Sirius is any indication.

When his father cracks his egg, it looks like a decapitation. "My brother Cygnus has three daughters. Three daughters! I thought I got the last laugh. But they all went to Slytherin." He looks up and his gaze falls on Regulus, as if he's surprised to see him there.

Orion seems to be a bit confused that there's only one of them. Regulus thinks his father needs both of his sons there to remember which of them is which. With just one, he is lost. And when he is lost, he is angry.

"And my own? Gryffindor," he says. "Like commoners."

_Not in Gryffindor yet_ , thinks Regulus. Out loud he says, "I will not disappoint you." Even to his own ears it sounds like undue optimism. It's just so ridiculously easy to disappoint his parents.

His father looks like he wants to say, 'Let us be the judges of that', but his mother lays a warning hand on Orion's arm.

"You'll write when it's done," she says. "Right away. You'll write to us. It took your brother a week to write, we had to find out from Narcissa. I think I fainted, couldn't get up from that chaise longue for days." She gives another airy laugh. "I had Kreacher restock the smelling salts, just in case."

That, too, is something Regulus remembers differently, or perhaps he's dreamt the six hours last September it took Walburga to record the world's most magnificent Howler; his tutor taking him through calligraphy and geometry and ballroom dancing while his mother yelled at a piece of parchment in the next room.

Outwardly, he just nods. A third of his trunk, it seems, is taken up with rolls and rolls of high-quality parchment, fresh quills, and bottles of ebony ink. His new owl, Lethe, is fed and watered and resting in her cage. They've left nothing to chance, this time around.

When it's safe to get up from the breakfast table, he excuses himself, claims there's a book of utmost importance he's forgot in the library, accepts his admonition with dignity, and races upstairs. At the last possible moment, he veers off the path – he swears his mother can discern his trajectory just from the noise he makes on the staircase.

His brother is kneeling in the middle of his bedroom, worrying over a gigantic piece of parchment covered in diagrams and formulas and scribbles and a rather alarming amount of spilled ink.

It does rather blend in with the rest of the room. Where Regulus's room is spotless, his bed made, his things packed neatly away into his trunk, Sirius's is a mess: Every surface is stacked with notes, his trunk is open, its content strewn across the room, and the piece of parchment Sirius is kneeling over is actually six pieces, held together with spellotape and clever little charms.

Sirius himself is in a similar state of disarray. His hair is all over the place, like he's been worrying it all night, his face is pale and his eyes too bright, like he hasn't slept, and he's wearing yesterday's clothes.

"What's that?" says Regulus.

"Astronomy homework," says Sirius. "We were supposed to chart the moon phases over the summer. I only remembered last night."

Regulus contemplates the scene in front of him. "Why's it covered in ink?" he ventures.

Sirius looks up. But instead of scowling, like Regulus expects, he smiles. "Because Mother reckons I shouldn't have left it so late."

So that explains the yelling earlier.

Regulus looks down at the ruined parchment. Between pools of glistening ink, he can make out diagrams, trigonometric calculations, and the centre piece: a rough map of the sky, constellations slowly spinning, eight weeks of summer accelerated to about a minute, a lone moon wandering across the map, forever waning and waxing. But its path is all wonky now, as it avoids the larger puddles of ink slowly saturating the parchment.

"Full moon last night?" he guesses, after watching the moon loop past twice. Not that he'd know for sure, with his north-facing bedroom.

"Yeah, that's how I remembered," says Sirius. "Nothing like a big fat full moon shining in your face to remind you that hey, weren't you supposed to chart me for two months?"

Sirius stops, his brow furrowed, thinking, like he's miles away. Then he gives a small sigh, nothing more than an emphatic breath, as he taps the parchment with his wand, siphons off the ink in patches. It's slow-going. Underneath it, the parchment emerges, splotchy and greyed, slightly damp, and barely readable. Mother must have thrown the whole inkwell.

Sirius's mood is surprisingly good, considering, and still, it takes Regulus a moment to understand why. Because it's the first of September, and he's leaving in a bit. _They're_ leaving.

Regulus will believe it when he steps on that train.

"Won't Professor Sinistra notice you left it late?" he says.

"Good thing about moon phases," says Sirius, critically assessing his handiwork. "Very predictable. She didn't honestly expect me to spend my whole summer charting –" Under his hands, the moon is finally back on its predicted path, even if its movements are somewhat hesitant whenever it reaches a damp-warped patch of parchment. "There," he says. "That's better."

He gets up from the floor and makes a show of dusting off his hands on his trousers, then takes a moment to survey the chaos around him. "Should probably start packing," he says.

Regulus remembers why he came here in the first place. "I brought you breakfast," he says, and holds out his hand.

Sirius takes one look at the sticky bun Regulus has liberated from the breakfast table, which is by now oozing honey through openings in the folded napkin, and snorts. "They have a food trolley on the Hogwarts Express," he says. "Pumpkin pasties and jelly slugs and chocolate frogs, been looking forward to it all summer."

Sirius starts Summoning things from all over the bedroom, quills and socks and assorted artefacts, stuffing them unceremoniously in his trunk where they crease his carefully pressed robes.

"I'm not sneaking this past them again," says Regulus. Could have at least said thank you!

"Just leave it on the desk, kiddo."

"And have it be the issue of the week for Christmas break? No, thanks." Regulus really wishes Sirius would just eat the evidence of his own disobedience.

"Out the window?" Sirius suggests innocently.

"God, can you imagine what –" starts Regulus.

"You eat it, then," says Sirius, and that's just so typical, Regulus is just trying to be nice, but maybe Sirius is just not very good at accepting nice things. Or recognising them, for that matter.

Maybe if it hit him in the head, Regulus thinks, and takes aim.

It bounces.

"Oops," says Regulus.

"Did you just –"

"Afraid so."

They're both staring at the same point on the sky chart.

"Sorry?" offers Regulus. "I didn't mean to make it worse."

"Yes, I'm aware you meant to hit me in the head," says Sirius. He drops to his knees, and Regulus does the same. "You got honey all over Orion's belt."

Regulus's hand flies to his mouth. " _Shut up_ ," he says. Sirius should really know this is exactly the sort of thing that will be overheard by a spying portrait. But Sirius just looks up from the mess and starts laughing his head off.

Regulus pats his pocket for the wand he is technically forbidden from using. "Let me –" he says. His Scouring charm comes out a little strong. It lifts not only the crumbly, sticky honey, but also some of the drawn lines and the surface layer of the parchment. Underneath, the structural spellwork becomes visible, like bones and sinews under skin: Runes, equations, layered trajectories.

Sirius learned all that in one year? Suddenly Regulus is intimidated, rather than just merely awed, of what lies in front of him. That he even thought he could fix his mistake with his tutored magic -

His brother doesn't seem to mind, on the whole. If there's anything he enjoys more than complicated, flashy bits of magic, it's a healthy dose of chaos. In fact, Sirius is still laughing, like he's forgotten how to stop. Regulus, however, is staring at the exposed magic like he's rediscovering something.

A point. _The_ point.

"Beautiful," he breathes.

"Beautiful," says a cool voice from the door, and his head snaps up. "Imagine what he could do if he actually applied himself."

Walburga strides into the room. "Ten minutes, boys," she says.

Regulus wonders what she's doing here. Ordinarily, she would send Kreacher. Whatever it is that has brought her here, the presence of Regulus appears to have side-tracked her a little.

"Yes, Mother," says Sirius politely. Regulus chances another glance at the map. Mysteriously, the bun has vanished from existence. So have the crumbs and honey. Sirius is standing at ease, hands folded behind his back. Unfortunately, the parchment is still greyed and warped in several places, and Orion has a massive hole down the middle. Naturally, that is where Walburga's attention is drawn.

"I suppose, if it's the best you can do -," she says. "Maybe that'll teach you."

"Teach me what, Mother?" Sirius says in his most charming voice.

Walburga steps forward onto the abused parchment, her stiletto heel impaling yesterday's full moon as it struggles to rise above the horizon.

"Grace," says Walburga. She laughs. "Did he tell you, Regulus? I suppose it's a good thing he didn't spend more time on his homework, because he went and spilled an entire bottle of ink on it."

"Did he," says Regulus carefully, a non-committal utterance that should hopefully leave him out of the line of fire.

It works. To Sirius, Walburga says, "You've always been clumsy."

If Regulus has hoped that once, just this once, a conflict between them will fizzle out, he's underestimated their temper. Neither of them is at all able to hold back for more than five seconds.

Sirius throws a knowing glance at the parchment. "Wonder where I got that from," he states, because he has no sense of self-preservation, not since he was sorted into Gryffindor.

The slap sends him halfway across the room. Walburga isn't tall, or broad, and Regulus often wonders if there isn't some sort of raw power in her outbursts, something like a toddler's accidental magic, something that takes her overboiling annoyance and turns it into physical power.

"Don't think I won't have you home-schooled," she hisses, and Sirius glares back, a hand pressed to his reddening cheek, like he dares her. Like that won't make her as unhappy as him.

The problem with them is that either of them is willing to set themselves on fire just to get one over the other. Sirius is about to snap back, Regulus can feel that in his teeth -

\- So he slips out of the room, feeling a bit treacherous because what passes for Walburga's self-control _does_ improve in his presence. But the morning is a lost cause in that regard.

A few minute later, he is the first to wait at the fireplace with Kreacher and his packed trunk. He is soon joined by Father, who is surreptitiously checking his pocket watch – not that the Hogwarts Express wouldn't wait for the Blacks – and finally Mother and Sirius, who seems to have evaded home-schooling by a hair's breadth, after all. There's a bounce in his step that has nothing to do with his family gathered around the fireplace, and everything with his imminent escape from them.

It's their father's privilege to pass out the Floo powder. He pauses, his hand hovering over the silver tin, his stern gaze snagged up by Sirius's appearance.

"Were you willing to go out like that?" Orion says, his voice calm and controlled, the surface of a dammed river.

"Oh, what is it _now_ ," says Walburga, talking over Sirius's response and possibly, inadvertently, saving him from another row, this time with his father. Sirius appears altogether quite put together, by his standards. His clothes no longer look like he's spent all night kneeling on the floor inking his moon chart. His shoes are polished. Even his hair is some approximation of brushed. His face Regulus does not dare looking at, largely because their mother is already inspecting it, one hand uncomfortably under his chin, turning it this way and that in the glum light of the second drawing room.

"Clumsy boy." The spell she mutters is not a healing charm, merely concealment, and even that is not her style. Usually she'd let Sirius worry about hiding it. But Orion's parenting style is subtly different from hers: Hers is can-do-no-wrong, it's-not-me-it's-you. His adds a subtle note of best-not-let-the-plebs-see. They wouldn't understand.

Of course they wouldn't, thinks Regulus. He doesn't understand this himself.

* * *

King's Cross is everything Regulus thought it would be. Crowds of parents, children, their younger siblings, older cousins, grandmas, dogs, owls, toddlers, and his parents' subtle sneer at having to mingle with the unwashed masses. Sirius is off in a shot, jumping the messy-haired Potter heir somewhere in the distance. The last Regulus sees of him is when he puts Potter in a friendly headlock.

Regulus tries to stick close to his parents as they hiss last-minute commandments in his ear, but it's surprisingly hard not to accidentally give them the slip in the melee.

A light hand settles on his shoulder.

"Oy, Sirius," says a soft voice. "Had a good summer?" Welsh lilt. Rural. Middle class.

Regulus turns. Before him stands a kid even shorter than himself. He takes in the general state of him, his robes freshly laundered, but second-hand and ill-fitting, a do-it-yourself sort of haircut that is growing out. All things he shouldn't even be noticing but for the importance his parents place on them, because the kid's face is etched with a deep, old scar, running diagonally from his forehead to the curve of his jaw, narrowly missing his eyes, which are of some indeterminate, in-between colour.

The kid takes a step back. Looks around him, seeks shadows to hide in. "Sorry," he says. "I thought you were someone else."

"Sirius is my brother," says Regulus, scanning the crowd. "He's over there with the Potters."

The kid's gaze follows Regulus's pointed finger with some delay – like he wants to look, but he doesn't want to be seen. He looks tired, washed out, eyes puffy and hair on end. Of course, Sirius is the same way today, having stayed up all night to chart two months' worth of moon phases.

"Thanks," the boy says. "You must be Regulus. Sirius talks about you a lot." He holds out a hand. "Remus Lupin."

Regulus reaches out to take his hand – he has manners, thank you – and inquires, "Did you stay up all night, too, for your Astronomy assignment?"

Okay, so maybe his small talk is not as top notch as Andromeda's, because he basically just informed the kid he looks like something the cat dragged in.

Lupin flinches – but then, he does rather look as if a gust of wind may finish him off. He gives Regulus a resigned smile. "Don't tell me that this is the one time Sirius actually did his homework."

Regulus smiles back, because he's caught himself thinking the same thing. "Oh, he barely did," he says, and then a huff reminds him that he once again has his parents' full attention.

"And what," says his mother's voice, "is _that_."

Remus Lupin graces her with a brief glance, and a weird expression flashes over his face, like he suddenly understands a particularly frustrating puzzle.

"Nice to make your acquaintance, Regulus," he says. And then, maybe by some sort of instinct – and Regulus can't put into words how much this unsettles him – Remus Lupin does the one thing that is sure to fire up all the missiles in Walburga Black's battlefield of a brain: He ignores her completely, like she's no more than a bit of scenery, and steps sideways into the crowd.

The man who has been standing behind him, a tall librarian type who Regulus only notices now, gives a polite nod to Regulus's parents that doesn't _quite_ hide his amusement, before vanishing into the masses himself.

"Did he touch you?" hisses Walburga. "Give me your hands. He looks _infectious_." Of course, she needs to lash out at something, and his flinch at her scouring charm on his hands seems to calm her down a bit.

So that's why Walburga despises the unwashed masses, thinks Regulus. Take her out of Grimmauld Place and put her here – with those families she scoffs at, laughing and hugging and crying – and she stands out like a sore thumb. _They_ stand out like a sore thumb, a Gothic family portrait in a contemporary magazine spread.

Despite himself, Regulus sort of tries to hold on to this thought – _maybe it's not them, maybe it's us_ – when Walburga says in a carrying voice, "Oh, there they are, _finally_. I swear Cygnus gets here later every term. And those girls of his – wearing their hair down, like common trollops…"

Which really only just proves that all you need is a sufficient number of _us_.

* * *

Regulus is not stupid enough to enter the train with Sirius and his ramshackle troupe of friends, at least not in view of his parents – but first chance he gets, he escapes from Narcissa and Andromeda's lacklustre attention and wanders off to find his brother.

He finds them in the last compartment at the end of the train. Through the glass door, he can see Sirius, the Potter heir, the scarred one called Remus Lupin - who has claimed two seats and is resting with his head on his rolled-up cloak - and an unknown boy his mother would probably have called _pyknic_.

And a rather luminous, boy-shaped, dripping surprise.

Regulus has almost forgotten about _him_.

"Careful, will you," says Sirius, when Regulus opens the compartment door – but it's too late, the ghost child yelps and dissolves, and Sirius's face falls. "He's a bit skittish, you know," he explains after a moment.

"He's -," says Regulus, who has been meaning to introduce himself, but finds himself side-lined by the ghost. "Why. I mean how. I mean, mostly I mean why, but really, _how_ -?"

"I think he came with the water," says Sirius. "When the diary fell in the sea, remember?"

"He hitched a ride on the diary?" says Regulus. "I thought that was just an image!"

His friend, the Potter heir, laughs. "Didn't you say he was brilliant, Sirius?" Like hitch-hiking ghosts are a thing that happens every day in _his_ world.

"Be nice, James," says the pyknic one, looking thoroughly pleased with himself at having identified the mocking victim of the day, "he's only a little firstie."

Regulus is just about to give up on Sirius's friends altogether when Lupin speaks. "Ghosts _are_ images, Regulus," he says with a voice like he's halfway through dozing off, and they're barely out of London.

"Oh," says Regulus. " _Oh_. So if I were to take a photo of the ghost –"

At this, the pyknic one positively howls with laughter. "You can't photograph a ghost, you ninny!"

"Shut up, Peter," says Sirius sharply, and Peter deflates a little.

"He's right, though," adds Sirius. "A ghost is already just barely there, it'd be spread too thin to see."

"So if I _do_ see an image of the ghost –" says Regulus, "- it's the ghost?"

"See?" says Sirius to his friends. "Said he was brilliant."

"Yeah, but you embellish," says James, but his tone has become friendlier. Regulus notes that Sirius does not tell _him_ to shut up.

"So that's the how," says Regulus. "But why -?"

"I thought he'd like Hogwarts," says Sirius. "Better than the Muggles of Blackpool. Or Grimmauld Place. Imagine being stuck with _them_ for the year!"

_I was stuck with them for the year!_ is what Regulus refrains from replying. Instead he says, "Why didn't you _tell_ me?"

Sirius gives him a look like he was born yesterday. "I had a feeling Mother shouldn't know about him," he says. "The way they warded the house – it's like they don't _want_ ghosts living there." He shrugs. "You're just not that good at keeping secrets. And I _like_ him. He's like a scared little bird."

"I'm very good at keeping secrets," says Regulus, who has liked it better when Sirius called him brilliant in front of his friends, embellished or not.

"For example?"

"Like the one time you –" starts Regulus. "Oh, _drat_."

Sirius grins and so do his friends and Regulus doesn't like it one bit.

"Anyway, I don't think he's very good at being a ghost," he says. "Isn't he supposed to scare people? Not scuttle off whenever he hears a noise?"

"Oh, I blame that on spending the summer in Grimmauld Place," says Sirius. "If I could dissolve at the sight of Mother, I'd do it, too."

His friends laugh, and Regulus can feel the heat rising in his face. Is he supposed to agree with them, to say something nasty about his family? Is that the price of fitting in? "Well, the ghost is very young, I suppose," he says.

At this moment, the train whistles, and that seems to remind Sirius of something. "Shouldn't you be with our lovely cousins?" he says abruptly.

Regulus makes a face. "They're _boring_ ," he says. "They talk about girl things."

It's a bit of a lie – they're talking about _politics_ – but Regulus doesn't want to get his brother started on that, too.

"Narcissa writes to Mother," says Sirius. "You sit here, she'll know. Your choice."

It's one of his politer dismissals, and Regulus has to admit Sirius has a point. After last year, it's probably in their best interest to be as non-confrontational as possible at the beginning of the year.

At least wait until after the Sorting.

Oh _god_. That.

* * *

Stepping off the train in Hogsmeade, Regulus realises for the first time what cattle must feel like, as they're being ushered away by a gigantic man with a Cockney accent and an alarming amount of hair. On the shore of the nearby Black Lake, a neat row of boats lies in wait for them.

Wait. _Boats_? Sirius has neglected to mention the boats. Which is not too unusual – he does get distracted – but no-one else has mentioned them either, and they've briefed him very thoroughly on everything surrounding the Sorting. They're not leaving a _thing_ to chance, after last year.

Except, apparently, this.

His cousins fuss over him, hissing last-minute encouragements into his ear ("You'll need to project _confidence_!" - "Think in whole sentences and don't forget your elocution, the Hat will know!" - "Sirius's Sorting was a fluke, stay focused and it will be all right!" – "Just be yourself!" – " _Really_ , Cissy?"). At the sight of the boats, Andromeda nudges Narcissa, whose mouth forms into a perfect, rosy 'o'.

"Mr Hagrid?" Narcissa says politely. "Excuse me, Mr Hagrid? My young cousin here is deadly afraid of water and –"

Oh, _god_. This is getting worse and worse. "Please, Cissy," he mumbles, trying to convey that he'd rather not have his new classmates know about that without doing something so impolite as to actually point it out.

Narcissa gives him a look that clearly conveys that everything a Black does is by definition not embarrassing, which is one way to go through life, he supposes.

"'S perfectly harmless," rumbles the one they call Hagrid in a voice that is definitely, definitely carrying. "Even if you fall in, the Giant Squid will chuck you right out!" He gives Regulus a pat on the shoulder that nearly knocks him over.

Then the Hagrid person takes a closer look.

"And aren't you the spitting image of young Sirius Black!" he says. That friendly but disconcertingly big face is peering down on him, making him slightly uncomfortable. "What're ye going for - Gryffindor like your big brother, I expect?"

"Slytherin, I hope," he says, aware that he's barely audible over the crowd.

"Really." That giant of a man seems surprised. "Well, I suppose it takes all sorts, eh? – Firs' Years, follow me!"

And he is off towards the boats.

"Ridiculous," says Narcissa. "Come, Regulus, we'll take you up in a carriage, no-one will know."

"Nah, he's fine," comes a voice from behind them. Sirius grins up at his cousins, having jogged down the entire length of the train. Only Andromeda grins back.

"It's just a bottomless lake and a giant piece of seafood," says Sirius. "Nothing to worry about. Now, Reggie, I'll see you after the Sorting. Remember what we talked about?"

"Yes," says Regulus miserably. "But I'm not cunning and I'm not really feeling ambitious."

"Trust me," says Sirius. "That's nothing compared to how very _not brave_ you are. Or clever. Or hardworking. But most of all, not brave." He waves towards the Black Lake. "Wish I could go again!"

A small smile breaks through on Regulus's face. "Shut up, Gryffindor."

"Hold on to that," says Sirius. "You'll be just fine."

Narcissa looks from one brother to the other, until her gaze settles on Sirius. "Did you just -?" she starts.

"Shut up, Slytherin," says Sirius good-naturedly.

Which is exactly the wrong thing to say to Narcissa Black. She looks Sirius straight in the eyes. "I suppose Ravenclaw would be all right for Regulus," she says loudly. "He isn't half clever and the dungeons do get draughty…"

"Cissy, _focus_!" snaps Andromeda. "Or do you want Auntie Walburga to have that aneurysm she's been promising us for twelve years?"

"Not in front of the cousins, Andy," hisses Narcissa.

"Oh, I'm sure they've noticed their mother is a drama queen," says Andromeda, still with a hint of annoyance in her voice. "Reminds me, Sirius, that is the shoddiest concealment charm I've ever seen… here, let me, before McGonagall sees…"

"Ugh, get out of my face!"

But Andromeda is without mercy. She lifts the concealment charm on Sirius's cheek with a rub of her thumb, and what has looked like a misaligned shadow darkens into a bruise, settled deep over the long train ride. It dissolves with a tap of Andromeda's wand. Sirius is squirming under her attention, as if she were wiping a bit of dirt off his nose.

"Firs' years, this way!" comes Hagrid's booming voice again.

"Best be off, then," says Andromeda heartily, as the last straggling First Years pass them. "Reggie, good luck, we'll see you after the Sorting, and don't forget –"

" _Focus on that panic attack!_ " shouts Sirius.

"I was going to say _remember where you come from_ , but that should hopefully rule out Gryffindor," says Andromeda with a sigh.

It doesn't matter either way. Settling into an unsteady boat, the roar of the surf in his ears, Regulus realises that his brain seems to be dead set on following Sirius's advice. He doesn't know how he gets to that legendary stool in the Great Hall without either drowning or fainting. He can't make sense of what the Hat says to him, except that it's taking a long, long time and many an _"oh, poor child"_ and _"yes, your brother stressed that point"_ and _"where you're going, you're going alone"_. When it's done, he walks towards the applause, and finds rather a lot of green and silver at the end of it, and that's good, isn't it?

Or mostly good. He gets a first impression of what his Sorting truly means when he has to turn his head and scan the crowd for his brother. When he's found him - a mile away, on the other side of the Great Hall - Sirius gives him a careless grin and a thumbs-up from underneath the table.

But it still doesn't quite kick in until he sees the Common Room for the first time: Low, dark, exquisite, with large windows that look out onto the murky depths of the Great Lake. Funny, they neglected to tell him that.

Like someone has taken Grimmauld Place and stuck it at the bottom of the sea.

* * *

The next morning, Lethe brings him a letter: Family crest, heavy cream-coloured parchment, beautiful calligraphy.

_Dear Regulus_ , it says,

_Finally, good news from Hogwarts! After the shock of last year, it is a great burden off my mind to know that you are safe and sound in Slytherin house. Of course, we would have expected no less from you – ever since you first showed magic at the age of five, we knew you were destined to honour the name of Black. Remember that day your brother pushed you off the pier in Blackpool? Six-year-olds can be so carelessly cruel. It gave us such a fright! But you levitated yourself out of the sea, and I knew you were meant for grandness._

_Your father and I spent the evening reminiscing – does the Slytherin Common Room still have those green torches? Green is the colour of life, my son. The colour of spring. The colour of rebirth. Oh, I do believe great things are coming our way!_

_Uncle Cygnus – he sends his love – says we should have told you about the unique location of Slytherin house, but I disagree. I feel those underwater windows should be first experienced with naïve eyes – the vast depths of the lake, the foundations of Hogwarts; the pillars of our society rise from Slytherin house. And I do know you have an affinity for water. Did you know water does not compress under pressure? Air does, and so does earth. Fire burns hot, but it can be smothered. Water does not compromise._

_I can't think of a better place for a son of mine._

_With love_

_Your Mother._

* * *

_To be continued._


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your feedback! I especially enjoyed the speculations on the ghost and Blackpool – and we're inching ever closer to the reveal, so keep 'em coming (I *think* I placed most of the clues - you guys will probably figure it out before our heroes. If not this chapter, then the next.) (Edit: obviously that means **SPOILERS** are now scattered across the comments section haha - though you won't know which XD)
> 
> As always, I look forward to reading what you think :)

Hogwarts is underwhelming.

Definitely underwhelming, thinks Regulus, after the first night he shares a dorm with five respectable young Pureblood boys, one of whom snores and two of whom smell. Definitely, definitely underwhelming, he thinks after his first week of classes, where around him they shout and flourish, trying to get the hang of spells Regulus learned when he was six. Really quite extraordinarily underwhelming, he thinks after his first flying lesson, when he is informed that first years are not allowed to go higher than Hagrid's shrubs, because of that one kid in the 1700s that never came down.

Is it possible that, in his attempt to persevere in Grimmauld Place, he has adapted a little too well? Gone is the sedate drag of his family home, the one-on-one tutoring, the sleep like he switches off for the night. In the buzz and bustle of Hogwarts, he has to fight for every scrap of sleep he can find.

In fact, if not for the Astronomy Tower, he feels he may quickly succumb to a quiet, nervous, seven-year-long despair. But the stars are ancient, and very, very predictable, and, best of all, mercifully silent. Some nights – when the eternal Scottish cloud cover lifts and Regulus feels like he is half-way on top of his enormous sleep debt – he will sneak up here, ostensibly to catch up on his homework without the buzz of students around him. But more often than not, he will find himself simply watching the slow spin of the galaxies, something far bigger and older than himself.

He's not the only one keeping an eye out for cloudless nights. Many times, Sirius will already be here, comfortable with his back against the ledge, alternating between scribbling in his diary and chewing on the quill. And then he'll lift his head and smile and finally, Regulus thinks, _someone_ is happy to see him.

Sirius doesn't think Hogwarts is underwhelming, and Regulus tries to explain about the _noise_. "Back home, it's just outbursts," he says. "It's loud -"

"- _so_ loud –"

"but it's… predictable? Like punctuation."

" _Punctuation_ ," repeats Sirius, who doesn't seem to follow. Granted, his punctuation has always been on the unpredictable side. "You're writing too many essays, Reg."

"And here, the noise is like a run-on sentence," says Regulus, because he's worked hard on this analogy and will see it through to the end. "It's confusing and grating and it just _never, ever stops_. … Except up here, I guess."

Sirius just looks at him, and Regulus realises that it's not that his brother doesn't notice the ubiquitous noise of Hogwarts, no: He _likes_ it. If it weren't for the fact that, quite clearly, Sirius likes the calm of the Astronomy Tower, too, Regulus would be worried for his sanity.

Sneaking up on the Astronomy Tower is the only forbidden thing Regulus allows himself. He's not worried about detention, or letters to Grimmauld Place - that inexplicable need to watch the stars is something even Mother understands. And fortunately, Professor Sinistra, whose birth precedes the discovery of Neptune, doesn't give a hoot if her best students are up here after curfew, and if asked, would probably respond when else were they supposed to be stargazing, at three in the afternoon?

They talk about school work, too.

"I _know_ all this," says Regulus once. "How am I still so _busy_ all the time?" Unfortunately, no amount of glaring at his Potions essay will materialise the missing six inches. That's what he gets for being succinct, he supposes.

"What's this one about?" says Sirius.

" _Compare and contrast the four uses of Mandrake root in potion-making_ ," says Regulus.

Sirius wrinkles his nose. "I can think of at least six."

"So can I," says Regulus. "Which ones does Slughorn expect to turn up in a first-year essay, you think?"

His brother gives this some consideration. "Maybe not the one that turns a person inside out?" he suggests.

Regulus rolls his eyes at him. "Oh dear," he says. "There goes my introduction."

"Or do what I do, and just don't do your homework," says Sirius. "You already know all this. Just convince them you're brilliant and it's amazing what the teachers will let slide."

Regulus racks his brain for some more fluff to pad his conclusions. "That would sound more convincing if it didn't come from the all-time record-holder for total hours spent in detention," he says.

"I'm not the one writing essays at two in the morning," Sirius points out. "As for your question – you're busy because they _keep_ you busy. Think the teachers want three-hundred kids to get _bored_?"

Considering the haphazard magic he's seen from his peers, Regulus can't disagree with that logic. Just another example, he thinks distantly, of how magic is ruined by too many _people_ -

Some nights, they don't talk at all. Regulus hadn't even considered it an option – had thought silence just came in two variants, solitary or awkward - but while Sirius may not understand about the _noise_ , he just shrugs and accepts it. Regulus is surprised how easy it is, how comfortable, to watch the stars for hours on end, wrapped up in silence like a safe cocoon.

* * *

Whenever it's bright enough to read on the Astronomy Tower, Sirius lets him flip through his ever-growing diary, watching him all the while like he's gauging his reactions.

The diary has become a bit of a hybrid affair. More often than not, Regulus finds himself skipping the prose – when they're home in Grimmauld Place, Sirius writes a _lot_. There's not much else to do for him with all the time he spends locked away in his room or the cellar. Those entries make Regulus uncomfortable - he doesn't recognise any of those events, or remembers them differently, and if their mother ever figures out how to read Sirius's diary…

Here, in Hogwarts, it's a different thing: A diary of magic.

Around Hallowe'en of Sirius's second year, the moon chart returns, shrunk in size to fit on the pages, but extended in time to cover the entire previous eight years - all the way back to an October night in 1964. A tap of his wand zooms in on the details; legends pop up to give durations, moonrise, moonset.

Shortly before Christmas, Sirius is still making maps, but this time it's Grimmauld Place, with all its rooms and halls and impossible geometry. Little dots are moving between the rooms, labelled _The Hag_ and _The Tyrant_ and _The Stooge_.

(It turns out that map has an unfortunate time delay, because on Boxing Day 1972 it shows _The Hag_ still in the parlour when she is in fact already bursting into the ancestor's room, where Sirius is riling up the paintings with his, quoth Mother, _impertinent questions_. Or, quoth Sirius, _just questions_. Either way, it doesn't end too well.)

And he _draws_. He likes animals, Sirius does, and he draws them a lot, always in movement, dogs in all shapes, playing puppies, swaggering Grims, wolves in attack, owls in full flight. He draws huge, skeletal winged horses, over and over and over, a weird, disturbing sort of beauty. Regulus keeps meaning to ask about them – but it's the sort of thing that slips his mind.

When Sirius draws his friends, it's more evident that he embellishes. Those are not the scrawny-looking Gryffindors Regulus knows from the Great Hall. Still, there's something about the drawings that makes them unmistakeable. Something about the deep, painful looking scars on Lupin's face, his curled smile; the squinty look Potter has when he peers through his glasses; the sincere, can-do-no-wrong face of Pettigrew.

"Who's that?" Regulus asks.

The face on the page looks like a Black – so much, in fact, it's almost a caricature: Pointy chin and aristocratic bones and bright expressive eyes, and if Regulus didn't know any better, he'd say it was a drawing of himself. Except Sirius does draw him, too, a very peculiar version of Regulus, all softness and quietness. All that is not Black.

Sirius peers over his shoulder to see what he's talking about. "The ghost, of course."

Oh. Once again, Regulus has almost forgotten about _him_.

"Doesn't look like him," says Regulus.

"Well, you know," says Sirius. "It's tricky, making images of ghosts. Besides, he is very blurry. I have literally no idea what that kid looks like."

It's like the ghost waited for this. Shortly after they return from their Christmas holidays, when Sirius is angry and closed-off and fidgets in their shared silence, the ghost starts joining them on the Astronomy Tower, just rises from the pages of the diary like he steps out of the sea. Sirius, so quick to snap at everything, doesn't seem to mind the company.

Regulus _does_ , and it takes him a while to understand why: It's not because the ghost's milky-white light outshines the stars (even though it does).

"It's like we're babysitting him," he says one time, when the ghost isn't there. "He's a child and he's not growing older."

"It's not his fault," says Sirius.

"It's not our fault, either," says Regulus, and wishes he could find words that didn't make him sound so callous. He feels sorry for the ghost, he really does, but having him feels like an enormous responsibility. The ghost is not getting older, or wiser, or any more fun, and he cries a lot and flounces at the tiniest noise. How are they supposed to cheer up a child that died horribly and doesn't seem to remember much else?

Sirius tries relentlessly. He teaches the ghost subjects he doesn't need a body for: Astronomy and History of Magic and even some Arithmancy, just so they have something to talk about that isn't Blackpool, or drowning. Regulus tells himself he is perfectly happy in his own cocoon of silence, writing foot after foot of essays, solving equations, charting stars, but when he sees Sirius and the ghost on the other side of the tower, talking with their heads together – the first time the ghost makes Sirius _laugh_ -

The burn behind his eyes is familiar, and yet it takes him the better part of two school years to identify – two years of scrambling for sleep in the dungeons under the lake, of casting familiar spells in frenzied classrooms, and later, of chasing Snitches on the best broom money can buy. He feels like a wandering star, already ancient, following the paths his ancestors have mapped out over and over, walking the same halls, learning the same things. Watching the skies, waiting, waiting, three, four, five weeks at a time, _waiting_ , for the clouds to go away so he can spend the night under the stars with Sirius, only for the ghost to join them, too –

It is the same burn he feels when he watches Sirius across the bustling Great Hall with his best friend James, and shortly before his second year is over, Regulus can give it a name: Jealousy.

The noisier it gets, the quieter he becomes.

* * *

A number of things happen the summer after Regulus's second year, and Regulus supposes he should have seen them coming. Naturally, he's blindsided.

On the morning of Regulus's thirteenth birthday, their mother informs them gravely over their poached eggs that their cousin Andromeda has died in a terrible broomstick accident.

"Oh dear," says Regulus.

He is a bit shocked, and he's sure he isn't reacting appropriately. It's not really a _Black_ way to die, isn't it? Blacks die of disappointment and resentment. They die clutching their pearls in the parlour room. They die by their own hand, or they drown in the Irish Sea. Nothing they do is an accident.

He throws a sideways glance at Sirius, whose entire face is scrunched up into a clear representation of the word "bollocks", but thankfully he doesn't say it out loud. This time.

Instead, Sirius says: "That is terrible. What will become of her child?"

Walburga raises an eyebrow at him. "What child?"

"Nympha – something?"

Walburga sighs. "Just like you to joke around on such a grave day."

It shuts Sirius up. But even if Regulus hasn't thought about his cousin Andromeda in almost a year, it does bring up a memory, one that Regulus is careful not to share: Andromeda, last summer, between her N.E.W.T.s and Blackpool, had done away with a lot of pretences, and her loose, heavy cloaks had turned out to be one of them. When she'd shed those, she was surprisingly pregnant, and proud, and _happy_. Even with everyone else pretending not to notice, Regulus had found it rather hard to miss. What with the bikinis and all.

Later, in his room, Sirius shows him a letter from Andromeda that arrived just the other day: An engagement notice, cut out from the Daily Prophet.

"So let me get this straight," whispers Regulus, careful not to wake the portrait snoring above their heads. "They're willing to overlook one bastard child –"

"- but marrying her Muggleborn father will start the Third World War," says Sirius. "Good to know, I suppose."

Neither of them has ever heard of Ted Tonks, but he wears a friendly smile on the engagement photograph, waving at them with one hand, the other clasped in Andromeda's. Their baby is in a sling, hidden from view. In the margin, Andromeda has scrawled _I'm sorry_ and _Don't believe a word she says_ and _Still, do your Astronomy homework because I will be back to test you on it, you little Gryffindor toerag_. On the other side of the notice is an advertisement for the newest Hobgoblins record, _Seventeen and out_. Knowing Andromeda, she probably bullied the _Daily Prophet_ staff into putting it there.

"Oh, couldn't she have waited until after Blackpool?" says Regulus. "Wait, that's selfish, isn't it? Sometimes I can't even tell anymore."

"Extremely selfish, Reg," says Sirius, with a sigh. "I was thinking the same."

Their mother lets go of the whole Andromeda-fell-off-a-broom thing over the course of the day; clearly the story isn't quite dramatic enough for her liking. She tries out a few other versions, each death more gruesome than the last. Eventually, and to Regulus's great surprise, she settles for the truth, or what passes for it in the Black household: A screeching litany, many words beginning in _dis_ -, dishonour, disgrace, disappointment.

Later, there's an hour long uncomfortable _thing_ where they're all gathered in the drawing room, Walburga and Orion and Sirius and Cygnus and Druella and Narcissa with her red-rimmed eyes and even Bellatrix with her terrifying manner, and they reverse the ritual that binds Andromeda's life to the tapestry, and it burns for long minutes with a stink like human sacrifice, and at the end there's a hole in the tapestry and a tiny, charred milk tooth on the Persian rug. Kreacher cleans it away later.

On the whole, it is the most ridiculously overblown thing Sirius has ever witnessed in his life, as he tells him later, and in the very, very back of his mind, Regulus has to agree.

* * *

They leave for Blackpool the next morning, and nobody talks about it. It's as if Andromeda has never existed. It's unusual, this quiet and peace, and Regulus finds himself almost enjoying it –

\- Except his family doesn't do that. Quiet and peace. Instead, they stew. They walk along the promenade, not talking. They have fancy afternoon tea in the garden, cucumber sandwiches and pink petit-fours, not talking. They go on carriage rides through the countryside, not talking. All the while, Walburga is watching Sirius like a hawk, as if he's about to tie his laces and _run_. Sirius's face is on lockdown, he looks at his shoes or the clouds or the Muggle-built city, and there's an explosion looming on the horizon.

"They're French, you know," says Regulus one night.

They're on the Black Pier, safely in the middle, as far as away from the water as possible. It's been an overcast summer, bad for stargazing, and Sirius has used the time to perfect a new spell he found: It produces tiny glowing spheres that hover in mid-air, some silver, some golden, some blue-white, some red, like fireflies. Right now, he's making constellations with one hand, the other occasionally reaching for a plate of pink treats they've liberated from the tea room.

"What's French?" says Sirius thickly.

"Petit-fours," says Regulus. "They're not called that because you're supposed to fit four into your mouth at once."

Sirius grins. "Next thing you'll tell me is they're not actually petty, either."

When he's made quite enough stars to see by, Sirius gets out his diary. He snatches up these rare unobserved moments, and he draws his friends from memory, he draws Hogwarts, the mountains, the lake, as if to convince himself that those all still exist. The ghost hasn't come out for weeks – it seems he really, truly, hates Blackpool, even more than he likes having company – and Regulus is secretly glad, because it's so rarely just the two of them anymore.

Later, just as the clouds rip open for the first time in weeks, Sirius lets him flip through the pages while he watches the full moon rise, an absent expression on his face.

His drawings get better, thinks Regulus. Or maybe not better, more realistic. Maybe they're even losing something, whimsicality, wonder - like Sirius is finally getting used to having these people in his life. He flips back and forth between two drawings until he notices something.

"Your friend," he says. "Lupin."

Sirius visibly flinches, face paling in the silvery moonlight. He doesn't say anything, leaves no toehold for a possible conversation. His hands, splayed out on the rough wood of the pier, clench just a little, and Regulus thinks he is on to something.

He wonders what that's like – to _know_ someone so well he could draw them from memory, map their scars like a star chart. He wonders what it's like to be _known_ like that.

"His family," Regulus says very, very softly, because while their mother looks like she's a safe distance away, her hearing can be quite supernatural. "Are they… are they like ours?"

Sirius breathes out, as if relieved. "They are nothing like ours," he says. "His mum's a Muggle. He knows loads of really interesting things. Like how planes stay up. Or how to darn socks."

That information hangs between them, like it's a test, yes, it's Sirius testing the waters, see if Regulus will react like their parents would. And Regulus sort of wants to let go of the conversation, but the truth is, he's testing the waters, too.

"No, I mean," Regulus says, and looks back at the drawing, then flips back to the older one. He's _not_ mistaken. "His scars," he says. "I thought he must have been in an accident, but. Sometimes there's new ones. After the holidays. Or when he goes visit his Mum." He laughs, trying to take the tension out, but it fails miserably. "Or maybe you're just a shite artist."

Sirius looks at him then, like he's understanding something new about Regulus. Like they're sharing a secret, which they are, all the time, or better: Like they're acknowledging an elephant in the room: That this is not normal. That they're an exception.

"His family's _nothing_ like ours," Sirius repeats. "They're nice."

Under his brother's unwavering gaze, Regulus nods. "Then how –" he starts.

Unlike basically everyone else in the family, Sirius has never made him stop asking questions, but it looks like tonight might be the night he starts. Again, his brother remains silent so that the conversation may fizzle out.

"Some curses do that," muses Regulus. "They just... keep moving about, under the skin. They're very hard to extract. But that's really dark magic…"

"Trust a Slytherin to know that," mutters Sirius.

Somewhere, a puzzle part slips into place, but Sirius continues to neither confirm or deny, emanating the sort of conflict in the face of which Regulus is not brave enough to continue.

Because dark magic means an attack, and that base layer of very, very old scars means an attack quite early in life, and Sirius's guarded answers mean an attack by someone not family, suggesting a feud or an argument or simply the worst of human nature, and if Sirius knows anything about that at all, he'll have promised not to tell.

And Regulus is in Slytherin, where traditionalism and secrecy have lived in symbiosis for centuries; he knows when it's prudent not to pry.

Instead, he gets out his own diary for the first time in at least a year, and writes down all the different accounts of Andromeda's disappearance (another word starting in _dis_ -). He fills pages and pages and pages with his mother's mad stories, and then he puts the diary away and sleeps on it. The next day, there's just the one, true story, staring at him in his own handwriting.

A truly magical diary. It really helps him sort through the clutter of his own thoughts. He wonders where Andromeda got it from.

* * *

The explosion comes in August.

Like many explosions, it's premeditated. Andromeda was only the first sign, the smell of sulphur, the gas leak. One late night in August, Regulus is awakened rudely when his brother plonks down on his bed.

"It's _changed_ ," Sirius declaims dramatically.

"What?" says Regulus, whose brain is only just booting up.

"Up, sleepy sloth. Meet me in five." says Sirius with a meaningful glance at Auntie Ursa's portrait, who gives a pretend snore.

" _What_?"

"Try not to wake anyone," says Sirius and vanishes.

"I'll just follow your shining example," Regulus grumbles into the general direction of the still-open door.

When he makes his way up to the roof of Grimmauld Place, still in his pyjamas, he finds Sirius on the ledge, legs dangling, eyes narrowed. The diary lies next to him, and he's staring at it, but not with the usual reverie – rather like it's _contaminated_.

Regulus deposits a steaming mug in his hand, and Sirius takes an absent-minded sip before looking up, puzzled.

"Ran into Kreacher on the way up," says Regulus. "Told him I fancied hot chocolate."

"Sometimes I don't even know whose side you're on," says Sirius. He presses the diary into Regulus's hands. "Take a look."

The most recent pages are covered with layers of runes and spellwork, a new thing Sirius has been working on, something to record spoken words, the sound of leaves in the wind, and, Regulus supposes, the shreds of Muggle guitar music wafting over from the neighbourhood, the roar of their motorcycles.

"Not that," says Sirius. "Earlier. Can you see it?"

Still grouchy about his rude awakening, Regulus wants to brush this aside as Sirius's usual dramatics - but now, an uncomfortable but horribly familiar feeling settles in the pit of his stomach: What he sees doesn't match what he remembers.

It's like the drawings have shrunken, like all personality has left them. Lupin's scars are emphasised, ugly, no longer an intricate lattice but an uninspired grating. His smile has morphed from kind to predatory. Pettigrew's face has gone from open and honest to squinting dumbly at the observer, something about him suggesting _chav_. Potter no longer looks like the most fantastic person Sirius has ever met in his life. Instead he is still, lifeless, _boring_.

The drawings of Regulus and the ghost – not particularly distinct in the first place - have merged into one and the same person, not quite resembling either, generic like a cutout from _Nature's Nobility_.

"The text, too," says Sirius, reaching over to page backwards through the diary, until reaches an entry from years ago. "Those are not my words," he says, his voice shaking with barely contained anger. "That's not what I wrote!"

Regulus tries to see what set him off. The dense, slanted hand-writing is unmistakeably Sirius – a combination of years of calligraphy lessons and Sirius's typical lack of patience. But the _patterns_ are missing: The scratched-out words, the insertions, arrows, footnotes.

Regulus recognises that entry. It's from the Christmas after Sirius's Sorting, and he remembers being horrified when he read it for the first time, a verbatim record of the things Walburga yelled at Sirius, a detailed account of exactly what went on in Orion's study, after. Sirius has a gruesome imagination that matches Bellatrix's.

" _I now realise what a disappointment I have been_ ," reads Regulus out loud. " _I've really put my poor parents to the test! But through their guidance, I know now what I must do: Hold up our family values even in the face of_ – okay, it's changed, all right."

Sirius is silent for a long moment. Then he drags a hand through his hair. " _Thank you_. I thought I was going _crazy_ ," he admits. "Or that I was dreaming. Or both."

"Nah, the punctuation has improved drastically," says Regulus. "Sort of gave it away."

But his attempt to lighten the mood falls flat.

Sirius almost yanks the book out of his hands. "There has got to be a spell to turn it back to how it was," he says. His wand moves hastily, angrily over the pages, and the words shuffle and dance. Regulus watches for a moment, his first instinct is to retreat from his brother's mood – but no. He lays a hand on Sirius's wrist.

"Not when you're angry," he says, almost timidly. He can't say where it's coming from, this sudden protectiveness he feels for his brother's diary – it's just parchment and ink, he reminds himself, but suddenly it feels like _everything_. And everything will be lost if it is damaged beyond repair.

Sirius stops. "What?"

"Those spells you're using," says Regulus. "They're intent-based. They come out wrong when you're angry."

"How would _you_ know?" says Sirius, and Regulus wisely shuts up about the intent-based spellcasting that goes on in the Slytherin Common Room.

"Do you even get angry?" adds Sirius. "Ever?"

Oh, what does Sirius know about unbearable _noise_. "Wait until tomorrow," says Regulus. "It's too important."

Sirius just _looks_ at him, but he lets his wand sink. "You're a strange one, Regulus," he says.

"No," says Regulus. "Just careful."

They sit in silence for a bit, still pondering the diary, like a dead animal, held at arm's length.

"Mine changes, too," says Regulus after a while. It's like he's admitting something huge. "All the time. I write different things in it, like all the different versions of an event, and when I come back to them, it's just one story. Makes it much clearer what happened."

"Hm," says Sirius non-committally.

"I think the diaries are themselves magical," continues Regulus. "I wonder what Andromeda did with them, it must be really sophisticated. So maybe wait and see what it's trying to do?"

Sirius looks at him with all twenty months of seniority he can draw on, and suddenly Regulus feels as tall as a toddler. And about as clever. "It's not Andromeda's doing," says Sirius.

"Then _whose_?"

"Mother's, of course," says Sirius, and now he seems half amused, half desperate. "How have you not noticed? She screws with our memory all the time. She tells a different story every day. Remember that day she pushed you off the pier in Blackpool?"

"That's not – that's not what happened," says Regulus. " _You_ pushed me –"

"Oh, is that the _histoire du jour_ ," says Sirius, his voice turning nasty. "No, she wanted to test your accidental magic, and you nearly drowned, and everyone was just gawking and I thought you were going to _die_ –"

"No, that's not –" starts Regulus. "I remember it differently," he says weakly.

"You don't remember it at all, Reg," says Sirius. "You just know what she's told you since you were five, and it was something different every time. Five hundred anecdotes, remember?"

"And anyway, Mother can't get at the diaries," says Regulus, presenting his trump. "You need the pass-phrase."

Regulus's is still _Toujours Pur_ , because he believes pass-phrases should be meaningful, and because he can be a tiny bit lazy. Sirius's changes all the time – but then, he unlocks his diary all the time, too, and come to think of it, there's hardly anywhere in Grimmauld Place where they won't be overheard -

In fact, Sirius is changing the pass-phrase right now. Regulus could swear he hears him mutter, _I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good_.

"What? It's not like she ever expects anything else from me," Sirius says in response to Regulus's questioning look.

"Okay," he adds. "If we're going on lockdown, I suppose I have to –"

He opens the diary on those innocuous-looking wave drawings from Blackpool – the ones were the ghost first showed up, two years ago - and taps them with his wand.

"Ghost," he says. "Ghost, come out. It's important."

There's a hint of hesitation coming from the book, but finally the ghost rises, pale and silent. Apparently he's been listening to their argument for a while.

He's not as blurry as he used to be, Regulus realises, features settling into edges and outlines. Ever-changing. Towards what?

"I need you to lay low for a while, do you understand?" says Sirius. "I think she's catching on to us. No weird noises, no strange lights, no puddles of water in the parlour. Okay?"

Wait, thinks Regulus. _What_? Weird noises, lights, water? Why was he not informed of this?

The ghost nods sadly. "Will she banish me?" he says. "I don't like Blackpool. It's so –" he flails. "I'm so alone there."

"I'm not going to let that happen," says Sirius. "Just – give me a few days. And really, I mean it - don't come out for a while, they've been watching me."

"Okay." The ghost has never sounded more like a child. So disappointed, so close to tears. Trying to be brave. He hesitates, on the brink of dissolving again, mouth opening and closing like he wants to speak.

"What is it?" says Sirius.

"Sirius-like-the-star," says the ghost in a very small voice. " _You are wrong about Blackpool_."

"What?" says Sirius. "What did I get wrong? Tell me."

The ghost retreats, dwarfed by his own courage, hovering an inch beyond the roof's edge. "I dissolve," he says, eyes screwed shut in concentration. "I dissolve, I –"

Thirty hours until the explosion.

* * *

_To be continued._


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Note:** Thank you very much for your lovely feedback! Hope you're enjoying the mystery – here are some more important - possibly the most important - puzzle pieces! As always (I mean, this time especially, but really: Always), I am very interested in reading what you think :) Speculations are always welcome, but keep in mind that the comments may contain spoilers!
> 
>  **Warning:** I know it's all over the story basically, but have an emphatic warning for child abuse in this chapter. That family…

Even their parents flee Grimmauld Place occasionally. In the morning, Walburga dons an enormous veiled hat and Orion, a set of plum velvet dress robes with matching cane, and they set off for the 61st Somerset All-Day Thestral Race, leaving behind a quickly forgotten lecture and finally, blessed silence.

Of course, Sirius is busy. Four times so far Regulus has knocked on his door, trying to get him to come explore the attic, or play Vertical Quidditch, or even just go for a run in Regent's Park, because he feels that, with the summer progressing the way it does, his endurance now rather resembles that of an eighty-year-old, asthmatic chain-smoker. But every time, Sirius has been pouring over his altered diary, scrutinising every single page , match them to his memory, and coax the ink traces back into what they were before Walburga got her hands on them. Around lunch, Regulus gives up on him. Typical, thinks Regulus. It seems that when he told his brother to wait with the diary until he's less angry, he only succeeded in unleashing an obsessive-compulsive – albeit even-tempered - _beast_.

Now even this blissfully silent day is drawing to an end and Regulus is still sitting on the stone steps that lead out into their overgrown garden, reading. Next to him is a glass of Kreacher's home-made lemonade and a by now seriously depleted plate of biscuits.

The garden is a small affair, at least in the two dimensions that ordinary people would consider most relevant, a sickly oak tree overshadowing the unkempt lawn. Additionally, the garden is _high_. It ends more or less with the roof line of 12 Grimmauld Place, but it's compressed to contain almost half a mile of vertical airspace. The long shadows break oddly with the folded-over dimensions.

Regulus is almost three chapters into a book he liberated from the library – a beaten tome, heavily perused over the years -, when a large duffel bag is dropped next to him.

"Whatcha reading?" says his brother. " _Pensieves and the Magic of Memories_? No coincidences on god's green earth, I guess."

Regulus looks his brother up and down. The boy seems pale and distracted and obviously in need of a good dose of sunlight. Regulus takes a meaningful glance at his watch, which says it's gone six. "Do not ever," he says, "call _me_ indoorsy again. You look like something that grows in the cellar!"

Sirius grins. "Break's over, nerd," he says. "We're playing Quidditch."

"All done with your diary?" says Regulus, turning another page on the _Obliviate_ charm.

"Oh, _yes_."

"Could you turn it all back?"

"Better." Sirius grins widely. It's a tad disconcerting. "Will Kreacher be able to see us?"

"I asked him to make Beef Wellington for supper," says Regulus, feeling slightly guilty even as his eyes are scanning the last half paragraph of the chapter. "He'll be in the kitchen for ages."

They're not really supposed to be playing Vertical Quidditch in the garden, because its odd physics mean there's a drifting wormhole somewhere outside their parents' bedroom. But no-one has vanished into it since the late 1800s.

Sirius is halfway through putting on his gear when Regulus makes an executive decision. "We're switching positions," he says.

"Why," says Sirius. "Feel like hitting things?"

"My team's having to train up two new Beaters this coming year," says Regulus. "I'm not helping you get even better on your position."

"Regulus, you absolute _Slytherin_ ," says Sirius. "You're a shite Beater, though, sure you're up to this?"

"So? You're an absolutely appalling Seeker," says Regulus. "Come on up. First one through the wormhole gets a surprise trip to the Palaeolithic."

"Oh, all right," says Sirius. "But dibs on your broom."

Regulus's broom is sleek, flexible, and fast, and seeing it respond to Sirius without a hitch almost makes Regulus regret he suggested this. Sirius's broom is a warhorse, designed to withstand heavy forces – but all the collisions mean the steering needs frequent recalibrations, and Sirius obviously slacks off on that over the summer.

On the other hand, Regulus _does_ feel like hitting things.

The Snitch zooms off as soon as it's released and Sirius is after it in a heartbeat, rising high above the oak tree. Regulus sends the Bludger in his brother's general direction, then kicks off himself, keeping an eye out for the Snitch, out of habit – but it's properly vanished for now.

Vertical Quidditch means they're spending a lot more time than usual in descends and steep climbs. Grimmauld Place's garden is not evenly stretched – it's a number of overlapping spells, and the result is somewhat patchy. Once, Regulus hits the Bludger towards his brother – his entire body reverberating from the impact – and it comes straight back at him a second later. Only quick reflexes save him from being knocked off his broom, the Bludger skidding over his side. That'll be a bruise, he thinks.

"You all right?" shouts his brother. He's a bit roughed up by the Bludger himself.

Regulus laughs. "Any luck with that Snitch?"

"It keeps… slipping away…" comes Sirius's frustrated voice as he makes another attempt grabbing the glittering Snitch floating a few feet below him. It ambles off and flutters. Like it's laughing.

Regulus rises a few feet to meet his brother.

"That's because you slow down like a moron when you see it hovering," he says. "It predicts the broom's movements. Something with the vibrations. Either go faster than it, or don't move at all."

"What, you just hang around and wait for it to drop by?" says Sirius sceptically.

"No, you just have to… surprise it -"

The Snitch is hovering about four feet below them, with the highest branches of the oak tree another two hundred below it. Regulus considers the situation, then lets himself fall swiftly sideways, one knee hooked around his stationary broom. Upside down, his outstretched hand plucks the Snitch from the air, wings fluttering against his gloved palms, like a tiny heart.

"Like this," he says, unable to keep the smugness out of his voice even as the blood is rushing into his head. Sirius drops a few feet to be level with his head

"I forgot," he says. "Broomsticks, monkey bars, same thing to a Seek- _duck!_ "

The forgotten Bludger zooms past where Regulus's head would have been, had Sirius not grabbed him by the shoulder and swung him out of the way. A second later, Regulus oscillates back into its path and gives it a good hit with his bat. The Bludger flies off into the dusk, laying low for the time being.

Sirius looks him up and down. Or down and up.

" _Duck_?" says Regulus.

"It's a reflex," says Sirius. "I don't know what the upside down equivalent of ducking is! So what's your deal, Reggie?"

The world looks different from this perspective, and Regulus ponders his brother's words. "…Which one are you referring to?"

"The deal where you're afraid of your own shadow, but apparently gymnastics on a broomstick two hundred feet up in the air are okay?" says Sirius. "Not judging, mind."

Regulus laughs, freely and, for the first time this summer, without worrying who might hear. "Oh, that deal," he says. "I just like flying."

Getting a tiny bit tired of hanging upside down, he says, "Hold these," and hands his brother the bat and the struggling snitch before swinging himself back to a more conventional sitting position. "One more?"

Sirius grins at him. "One?" He throws the Snitch up in the air.

An hour later, his brother has started to get the hang out of this Seeking business. If Sirius weren't drawn to the Beater's position so much – hitting things with bats; it's like the position was _invented_ for Sirius – Regulus supposes he would make a fine Seeker, or at least an enthusiastic one – what with the ludicrous speeds, the absolute focus, the almost intimate rivalry with the other team's Seeker, the insignificance of things such as Bludgers or goals or survival.

He's oddly surprised that he's starting to warm up to the Beater's position himself. There's something to be said about hitting things – the jolt goes through his entire body every time, and a pleasant, warm sort of fatigue is starting to settle in his muscles. His hair is slick with sweat in the dying sunlight, his hands are developing blisters from the thickly padded, inflexible Beater's gloves, and his wrists are starting to hurt, but despite all, he's starting to have _fun_.

Sirius catches the Snitch three more times – once by plucking it from the branches of the oak tree, once from mid-air when it daringly tries to zoom past his ear, and once from a spectacular, possibly wormhole-enhanced Wronski-esque feint. His other eleven attempts are foiled by Regulus and his increasingly well-aimed Bludgers, nearly knocking his brother off his broom.

But now they're at an impasse. The Snitch, starting to get tired, is hovering near the upper end of their garden, almost half a mile off the ground. Sirius is trying to get at it, but Regulus has inserted himself between his brother and the Snitch, laughing himself silly. Every time one of the brooms manoeuvres, the Snitch flutters off another two feet.

"Tie?" Regulus suggests.

Sirius gives him a bright-eyed and somewhat deranged look. "Never!"

There isn't even time enough to call Sirius an idiot. For his brother throws himself off his broom – which, without a rider, is already descending gracefully downwards - and leaps onto Regulus's, hanging off the handle by the fingertips of his left hands. Swinging wildly with his legs, he gains momentum, rocking the broom this way and that, and then –

"Got it," he shouts.

"Still a tie."

"Watch and _learn_ , amateur," comes the slightly out-of-breath reply.

Regulus gives it a good long pause. "Comfortable?" he inquires. Eventually.

"Now that you say it," says Sirius from below, "I would appreciate a hand."

Regulus can't help but laugh as he reaches down. "You know," he says, "I'm fairly sure you're supposed to finish the game on the same broom you started on."

It's a bit of a scramble, since Sirius is not letting go of the Snitch – but with a lot of tugging, and shoving, and pulling, and kicking, he finally settles in behind Regulus on the broom.

"I'm starting to see why," says Sirius. "Bit crowded, isn't it?"

"All right," says Regulus. "I'll bring us –"

_Wham!_

The forgotten Bludger hits the front of the broom straight on, sending it into a wild spiral down the stretched, bumpy gravity of the garden. Regulus reacts instinctively. Unfortunately, so does his brother.

"No steering from the passenger seat!" yelps Regulus –

"It's _my_ broom, you –"

"Shut up and _hold on_!"

"- need to lean the _other_ way –"

\- and after another twenty seconds of feeling like he's stuck in the world's worst roller coaster, Regulus finally has the stubborn broom back under his control.

"Merlin, what did you _do_ to that broom?" he says, breathing against the panic that is finally making an appearance. This far from sea-level, it subsides quickly.

"I was deflecting Bludgers at _you_ for six bloody hours that last match, that's what I did to the bloody broom!" says Sirius. "Couldn't have caught that Snitch any earlier, could you?"

"I wanted to," says Regulus, "except I was being _pelted with Bludgers for six hours_ –"

He realises he's laughing again. Sirius, meanwhile, retrieves his wand from his sleeve, and sends the Bludger floating gently to the ground half a mile below, harmless as anything.

"Well, as I was _saying_ …" says Regulus, "hold on, I'm bringing us down."

"In a minute," says Sirius.

This most recent collision seems to have thrown off the broom's steering completely. As a result, the broom is swaying drunkenly even now that it's stationary. Sirius is holding on to him with one arm, the other still closed around the fluttering Snitch, and if Regulus didn't know any better, he'd think his brother just needs to catch his breath.

"I was thinking," says Sirius. "No portraits up here. No house-elves. No garden gnomes. No –"

Translation: No-one to spy on them. Ingenious. Potentially premeditated. Sirius would have done all right in Slytherin, Regulus supposes.

"Got a confession to make?" says Regulus.

"More of an apology," says Sirius into his ear. "Or, well. A warning."

Despite all, he's still almost whispering. Regulus has to strain to hear him over the wind. Sirius's arm is wrapped tightly around Regulus, sweaty hair tickling his own. It's _close_ in a way Regulus usually minds a lot; in fact, his brother is the only – and currently slightly dubious, what with the sweat and all – exception to that.

"I'm listening," says Regulus. Already he feels like the fun part is over, and they haven't even touched ground.

Sirius takes a deep breath. "Whatever goes down tomorrow," he says very, very softly, "you stay out of it."

Uh-oh.

"That sounds ominous," says Regulus. "What –"

"Promise."

Regulus stays still for a long time, his brother's breath close to his ear. And since this is exactly his area of expertise, he realises Sirius is _scared_.

"You're going to pick a fight," says Regulus.

"Promise."

"About the diary," he adds.

"Promise."

"Don't."

" _Promise you'll stay out of it_ ," says Sirius.

Suddenly, Regulus is angry. "I wasn't going to get into it!" he says. "Sirius, you know exactly what's going to happen."

"…Yes," admits Sirius.

"This time tomorrow, I'm going to tell you _I told you so_ ," says Regulus. "Because it's going to be your fault. You should know how to handle them by now, and yet you absolutely _refuse_ to stay out of trouble – you're inviting it – you _deserve_ it, you bloody Gryffindor _wanker_."

His brother stays silent for another long while. "As long as you stay out of it," he says eventually.

No longer able to tolerate this nonsense, Regulus concentrates on manoeuvring them both downwards. The landing, despite his anger and the shot steering, is soft as butter. He leaps off the broom as soon as they touch down and whips around.

"Then what was this about?" he says. "Saying goodbye?"

The dusky sky has long-since turned indigo. "I don't do goodbyes," says Sirius.

He settles into the overgrown grass, slotting the still-struggling Snitch back into its case, and sealing it for next time. If there is one. Then he carefully tugs Regulus's tight Seeker's gloves off his hands. The expression on his face is something new, too:

Sad. Scared. Determined.

Regulus fights down the urge to ask him why. What's happened this time to morph his particular brand of chaos from "spontaneous" to "premediated". Because the truth is, Regulus is scared too: That he will agree. That this will spurn his brother on. That it'll make everything so, so much worse.

"I can't do this without you," Regulus says. With a feeling he's going to regret this either way, he turns his back on his brother and steps inside.

Twelve hours until the explosion.

* * *

The explosion is heralded by shouting.

For the most part, it sounds like one of their usual rows – in fact, they're probably overdue one, this late in the summer. By the time Regulus notices anything unusual, they're really in full swing, Walburga and Sirius. Shreds of "impertinent" and "freak" and "you will regret this" rise above the general wall of noise as Regulus tiptoes towards its source, determined he's going to stay out of this – but also feeling that this is something he should not be missing. He's missing so many things already.

"You horrible child – how dare you talk to me like that – your own _mother_ –"

Walburga has a good yelling voice, shrill, piercing the walls of Grimmauld Place, and somehow still _articulate_ , but Sirius's has grown to match hers. At fourteen, almost fifteen, he's almost done sailing through his voice change, and it's already as deep as their father's, but far less controlled, and just _unbelievably loud_ , and it's four more years of this and already Regulus is fearing for his sanity.

And his ear-drums.

"You're a _liar_ ," shouts Sirius. "You're a perverter of language, you're a spider in a web –" and that is new, too. Usually he is reactive – maybe overreactive, but rarely accusatory. Maybe because he's not actually suicidal.

Not usually, at least.

Regulus peers around the corner into the drawing room. Sirius is backed up against the wall. He's without his wand; instead, he's clutching his diary protectively against his chest.

Unbidden, Regulus thinks of all those wonderful maps, those detailed drawings that Sirius has _just_ managed to put right again, and for some reason that's what's making him shiver, not the shouting, not the way Sirius is trapped without escape, no: Walburga has an uncanny sense for her sons' weak spots, and Sirius is presenting his on a silver platter.

"You have spoken to that wretched girl," she yells, "that Mudblood courtesan that fills your head with lies and fancies, you'll end up like her, mark my words –" Behind Sirius, the tapestry quivers in anticipation.

"Then tell me, Mother!" shouts Sirius. "If it didn't happen, _why can I see Thestrals?_ "

"You never saw a Thestral in your life, impudent boy!" screeches Walburga, too agitated to make anything up on the spot, her carved oak wand twitching in her hand. "You boast, you saw a picture in a book!"

"You're a liar and a m–"

Regulus wishes Walburga had less impeccable timing, because Sirius's voice dies away at the brink of something quite possibly world-shattering. His face twists into expressions of surprise, annoyance, and finally, horror. He's gasping for air, and it takes Regulus a moment to figure out _why_ : Sirius's clothes are constricting around him, a million fibres tightening to squeeze his skin, fine linen and wool becoming as stiff and unyielding as leather, or steel. His arms snap to his sides, rigid, shaking.

The diary falls from his hands.

"What did you call me?" says Walburga.

But Sirius is wheezing, like he's breathing through a tiny straw. His chest can't expand against the straightjacket that was formerly a loose white shirt. There is simply not enough air for him to talk.

Walburga strides forward, hand raised - but this time, hitting won't do. Her wand slashes through the air, and whatever it does, it makes Sirius double over as far as his treacherous clothes will let him, eyes widening in pain and rising panic. For one terrifying second, they lock with Regulus's, still in the doorway – but then Sirius looks away before their mother can catch on.

" _What did you call me_?"

Sirius's lips move without sound, but Regulus can't look, he _can't_ , because if he does, if he understands this - and already it's on the brink of his memories, _drowning, drowning, drowned_ – he wrestles it down, holds it under -

Whatever she did, Walburga lifts her wand to do it again.

Oh, Regulus wishes he were brave. He wishes he could _move_ , hurl himself between his brother and that curse – just as his brother would surely barrel forward, not press himself into the doorframe, trying hard to look like wood –

And then –

 _No_ , he thinks. _No no no_ -

The diary has fallen face-up, and from it rises the ghost child, hovering in front of Sirius, almost a head shorter than him but making up for it by floating. The ghost whirls around to face Walburga, but something's different about him:

He's not blurry at all. His image is crisp as a photograph, from his wispy dark hair to his small leather shoes. Regulus can't look away, not from those long-lashed bright eyes, that pouting child's mouth – the ghost's little face is impossibly, _painfully_ familiar, like a nightmare that his brain refuses to revisit – no, not a nightmare: A _memory_ –

The moment passes. "You leave him alone!" the ghost shouts. "Sirius-like-the-star is a good boy, you leave him alone, you horrible old hag!"

Predictably, he starts blubbering again. Still. Had Regulus thought the ghost didn't evolve? He used to be so scared of adults he would dissolve at the sight of them. The ghost is wailing now, but he perseveres, shielding Sirius with his immaterial body, for all the good it will do.

The spell that has kept Sirius trapped is faltering in the face of this new development, and Sirius draws wheezing breaths, carves a word into the shaky exhale, " _Run_ \- "

Which is when Regulus realises he should have paid attention to his mother all along.

Walburga Black looks, for lack of a better expression, like she's seen a ghost. Granted, not for long – her brain can't handle shock, or shame, or loss of control, it will simply _snap back_ to whatever it was doing before. She looks from Sirius to the ghost to the diary and back, and Regulus can see her draw the connection.

"You brought a ghost into this house," she says softly. "After all our efforts… all the wards… only ghost-free Georgian townhouse in all of England… and you bring home _this_. This abomination, this dead _thing_ that couldn't even die properly – but _how_ -"

"How _not_ ," Sirius says, voice still less than a whisper. Regulus sees his brother's collar squeezing into the soft skin of his neck and dimly notes he's starting to hyperventilate in sympathy.

"The water?" says Walburga. "Oh, for all your faults, why couldn't you have been more of an idiot." The way she says it, it still sounds like an insult.

Sirius, despite himself, grins. Briefly.

Walburga grins back.

"Good boy," she says. "Tied it to an object. Easier to clean up."

All traces of Sirius's smile vanish when the diary at his feet bursts into flame, ignited by a cruel flick of his mother's wand. Instead, his face now looks _old_ – resigned, rather, like he never expected anything else to happen to his diary, intricate maps, complex layered spellwork, drawings of all his friends, all the love and care and _memories_ he's poured into it: Heat and smoke and ash.

The ghost, panicked, turns to him. He's already fading.

With great effort for such a minuscule movement, Sirius holds out his hand. "Imagine," he whispers, and the ghost takes his hand, and for a moment Regulus thinks, _maybe_ –

 _Maybe_ -

The ghost flickers out of existence.

Regulus remembers the letter his mother wrote after his Sorting. _Fire burns hot, but it can be smothered. Water does not compromise_. A lie then, or maybe a truth she doesn't care about, because truth is what she creates, and right here, it's Sirius's memories burning up before his eyes, his hand still held out to a long-dead child.

"How could you," Sirius whispers.

"What do you call me?" says Walburga.

"A m-," says Sirius. "A m-"

" _What do you call me, Sirius_?"

"A mother," Sirius enunciates with great effort. His lips are tinged blue. "You're a mother."

His clothes relax, but they're damaged, hanging rumpled and shapeless off his frame. Sirius himself is sort of just hanging there, arms and legs and shoulders and head, held up only by spine and spite, and finally, he draws deep, gulping breaths.

"You wait in your father's study until he returns," says Walburga.

Regulus flees from the premises before she turns and sees him, too.

* * *

The brutal oak door of Orion's study fills Regulus's entire field of vision as he studies it carefully, trying to find some clue in that ancient wood. Just one reason why he should not knock.

But the wood is unhelpful, and Regulus raises his hand, raps his knuckles against the door, trying desperately not to be heard. For a tense, merciful second, everything remains silent.

Then his father's cool, impassible voice sounds through the door. "Enter."

Regulus enters quietly, somehow still hoping he might not be noticed. Silly.

The house may be Georgian on the outside – but inside, it can be much, much older. Orion's study is marble columns and gathered curtains; a square of Ancient Rome in the middle of London. It's quiet, though, and dark – the study faces north, like Regulus's own room, and it's just drab Grimmauld Place outside, not the Forum Romanum.

Sirius is sitting at the desk, writing carefully in a book. Orion, meanwhile, is waiting by the window.

It is not at all what Regulus has thought it would be like – what Sirius has, in fact, described over and over in his diary, in those long passages that Regulus would glance over because he couldn't bear it, and what is now finally exposed as the embellished lie it is, because Sirius is just doing lines. Right?

"Yes?" says Orion? "What is it?"

He looks from Sirius to Regulus and back again, like he's trying to determine whether he's got the wrong brother. Regulus is dimly aware that other families may have fathers who are able to tell their children apart – but he pushes that thought away.

"Mother sent me," he half-whispers, but in the quiet of the study, he might as well have yelled.

Again, his father's gaze slip to Sirius, and then back.

"To witness," Regulus clarifies hastily. "She said it was to be a lesson."

"Ah," says Orion. He looks thoughtful. "What do you think, Sirius?"

Sirius barely looks up, like Regulus is some sort of annoyance. "A _lesson_?" he says. His voice has mostly recovered, though there's still a hoarse undertone, like he just got over a bad cold.

Orion shrugs. "Your mother seems to think so."

"Oh, I'm sure it will be," says Sirius, his quill still moving over the parchment. There's an undertone in there that Orion chooses to ignore. Instead, he waves Regulus over to an armchair by the door, a not-so-safe distance away.

"Of course," muses Orion. "We've had some trouble with our previous lessons, haven't we? Perhaps you are hopeless, but your _brother_ –"

Sirius's quill stills over the parchment.

"One of you will learn from this, I'm sure," says Orion. "Let's see what you've got."

He snatches the book from Sirius's hands and turns back to the window to read. In that moment, Sirius catches Regulus's eyes again, and raises a hand to his lips, making an unmistakeable zipping motion.

Regulus hadn't _planned_ on speaking up, but it's nice to have the endorsement, he supposes.

By the window, Orion sighs audibly, then steps over to pick up an ornate quill from his desk. As he sets down the book, Regulus can see it's filled with paragraphs of dense writing.

"Seems like we have to try again, do we?" says Orion. "Reason you've been sent here, it says –"

"Talking back to Mother," says Sirius.

"Yes, I can see you have detailed the backs and forths of that conversation. And do work on your punctuation," says Orion with a certain amount of distraction as he bends over the words in front of him. He crosses out the text with deft strokes of his quill, and scratches a single word underneath.

"You're here for telling _lies_ , Sirius."

"I didn't –"

"It really is as simple as this."

Sirius looks like he wants to talk back, but remnants of self-preservation come through.

" _Suggested punishment_ …" continues Orion. "You wrote _six_. Why six, Sirius?"

"Nice friendly number." Sirius shrugs, and his shoulders are shaking but his voice is not. "Six days before I can go back to Hogwarts."

"Oh, we'll see about that," says Orion. "How about twelve? After all, there's two of you. Six more days to poison your brother's mind."

Sirius flinches when his father says _twelve_. Still, he sounds bored when he says, "Twelve is… rather a lot, don't you think?"

"True," says Orion. "Maybe split? Six _each_? Make sure the lesson really sinks in for both of you?"

_Each?_

Regulus knows he should be scared, at least as scared as Sirius looks, but mostly he is just confused.

Sirius looks at him, and then he looks away like the very sight is overwhelming. "Twelve," he says, and this time, his voice nearly breaks.

Orion, on the other hand, sounds almost bored. "Tell you what, we'll make it thirteen," he says. "For being an insufferable Gryffindor."

There's a blink, a pause, and -

"Fourteen."

It's unclear who is more shocked, Orion – or Sirius himself. But really, how neither of them could see this coming… because, Regulus thinks, this is _exactly_ how you rile up Sirius Black.

"Fourteen," Sirius repeats. "And you send Regulus out of the room."

"Fifteen," says Orion. "For haggling like a commoner."

An unbidden memory comes up, and Regulus can't push it back anymore: That first Christmas after Sirius's Sorting. How his brother hadn't left his bed for two days. What he wrote in the diary. _Lies_ , Regulus tells himself. Sirius embellishes, even his friends say so. He has a flair for dramatics, for stories, for _lies_ -

"Please, Father," Regulus starts, not knowing why _this_ is the moment he chooses to speak up, not even knowing _what_ he's going to say, maybe _six each sounds fair_ , maybe _please send me away like he said_ , but he doesn't even get that far.

" _Sixteen_ ," says Orion. "You both need to learn a lesson about talking back."

 _I thought it was about telling lies_ , thinks Regulus, and bites his tongue. He's sure he looks wretched enough, wants to apologise to Sirius, too, for earning him one more of whatever it is Sirius is so scared of, but -

"Regulus," says his father. "Go and get me number three."

Regulus gets the distinct impression he's supposed to know what's meant by that, but he doesn't. His mind is dangerously blank. The knowledge just out of reach, he knows that much, but it might just as well be miles away.

"By the fireplace," says Sirius.

So they're both in on the joke and Regulus isn't – but of course, it's not a joke.

It's a ritual.

It's a terrible ritual that only repeats and repeats. Like any ritual it requires play-acting, and that's how Regulus makes his way over to the fireplace; he acts the obedient son while his heart is digging itself right out of his chest. His throat is constricted with a terrible pressure, and he prays he may faint, or maybe just _explode_ , yes, just go supernova, burn up white-hot and angry and obliterate all, this room, this god-forsaken house, this forlorn planet and the cruel curse of humankind.

If only.

Three long wooden rods are leaning against the mantlepiece. Which one's number three, anyway? Resisting a sudden urge to go _Eeny meeny miny moe_ , he picks up the one on the right, and a jolt goes through him, a flash of intense, raw _feeling_ – unworthiness. Guilt. A disquieting bout of nausea. And on top of it all: Anger. So much anger.

"Hold it by the handle, boy," comes his father's cool voice, addled by just a hint of impatience.

Ah. The handle is just a knobbly bit at the end, dyed a subtly darker brown and densely covered in runes that Regulus now realises are protecting the holder. Even then, the thing leaks dark, tender energy into him, suggesting the wood, not unlike a wand, holds a magical core: Spun silk from an Acromantula, or a sinew from a Thestral.

 _Holloway rods_ , his memory supplies.

He's read about them, in library books he wasn't supposed to borrow except Slughorn signs off on exception after exception. It occurs to Regulus, not for the first time, that his father does not own all these dark artefacts, no: They own him. Things like the Holloway rods are never content leaning against the mantlepiece; they demand to be used. They feed on darkness, all the time. They soak up pain and fear and suffering and keep them for later. And every single one of those books have warned Regulus not to stick around for that.

It's daring, mad, irresponsible – and Regulus supposes it answers the ongoing mystery of _where Sirius got it from_.

He has half a mind to chuck the thing into the fireplace. But that won't even singe it, and he must really not dawdle a second longer -

When he goes to hand it over to his father, Orion pauses before taking it, his hand so close Regulus can feel its warmth on his own.

"Would you like to do the honours?" Orion inquires.

Somewhere in the shallows of Regulus's mind, he hears the rhythmic surf of the sea, and that's usually an indicator that he's going to spend the rest of the day in quite a state. He therefore doesn't manage his usual levels of diplomacy.

Or any diplomacy.

"No!" he yelps. His brother snorts softly, almost inaudibly, but it's still registered by their father, stored away for later.

"I see," says Orion. "Tell me, is that because you're weak? Or because you think it's wrong?"

What in blazes could possibly be the correct answer to this? Desperately, Regulus looks at his brother, who makes a complicated hand gesture behind their father's back. Unfortunately, neither of them is particularly adept at impromptu sign language.

Okay. Deep breaths. After all, he did lecture his brother on how to handle their parents just the other day. "I just don't think it's appropriate," he says. "I'm the younger, after all."

Orion shrugs, as if he really doesn't care either way, and directs him to sit on that dreadful armchair, to watch.

Regulus hates his father in that moment for making him complicit, hates his brother for his temper, hates himself for aiding this ritual, this pointless theatre, ostensibly to get Sirius back on track, effectively running him off. If he were any braver, he would walk out.

If he were any braver, he might be in Sirius's place.

He wills that armchair to eat him, those cool, dark shadows to swallow him up – or else he wills himself to become part of them, a silent, unfeeling part of the scenery. He feels so much he may yet explode.

His brother doesn't need instructions. Sirius rises from his chair to stand in the middle of the study he is going to inherit one day, opening the buttons on his shirt, that same one that tried to strangle him earlier. He shrugs the shirt off, folds it carefully – then lets it drop to the marble floor, as if daring Orion to up the ante.

No reaction from their father, so Sirius steps forward, places his hands on either side of the marble column rising in the middle of the room, and with a distant, crackling, ancient sound, his hands turn to marble, too, fusing with the cool, smooth stone.

Some part of Regulus dimly appreciates how _extraordinary_ this magic is, automated human transfiguration, bound to a _room_ – but then Orion says, "Ready." It's not a question.

Sirius's voice is steady, too, if softer than usual. "Sixteen," he says.

Regulus has sort of kept the panic at bay until now, but this is _it_ , the waters are rushing in, his breath is taking on a life on his own – and he welcomes it, makes it easier to _ignore, ignore, ignore_ what's happening no ten feet away -

"Fifteen," says Sirius, his voice catching on a hidden snag. This time, the rod comes down in the space between two heaving breaths, Regulus _hears_ it and not even his terrible memory will ever make him forget that sound, a snicker, a rush, a whisper of darkness from that infernal artefact.

Like it's _feeding_.

Like it's _alive_.

A minuscule pause, and Sirius says, "Fourteen." Regulus can't help it, his hands fly to his ears, too little, too late. He's definitely drowning now, fidgeting, splashing, flailing, _obvious_.

"Thirteen."

But nothing.

"Wait," says Orion, and he's stepping forward. Regulus barely registers that his father is coming for _him_ now before Orion takes his face in his hands – and he so rarely touches Regulus at all – and says, "I didn't say to watch your shoes."

Regulus nods mutely, trying to shrink away from those hands – that darkness is leaking, it's going to be all over him in a minute –

Orion sighs, a prim little sound of disappointment. "How old are you again, boy?"

"Thirteen," whispers Regulus, his eyes fixed on the Holloway rod that is, for now, leaning against the desk, twitching with impatience.

"Thirteen," repeats Orion. "I daresay that's old enough. Your brother has been coming here since he was six."

"I know," says Regulus, and not to his father. "I'm _sorry_."

"It's not your fault your mother is soft on you," says Orion, oddly gentle, before he returns to the task at hand.

It takes an agonisingly long time. A quarter hour ticks by on the grandfather clock and they still aren't done here. They keep waiting for Sirius to regain his voice so he can continue the countdown. They keep waiting for Regulus to take deep breaths and look up from the floor. When they reach a croaked, "Five," Orion takes a break, has Kreacher bring up coffee, offers Regulus a biscuit that he refuses. The house-elf shuffles and lingers.

It's just so needlessly archaic, thinks Regulus, in the space between strokes when he can almost think, it's archaic and pointless and doesn't achieve anything except misery, this-hurts-me-more-than-it-does-you, it certainly hurts Regulus more than it does his father, because it's clear that Orion doesn't understand pain at all, judging by the indifference with which he dishes it out.

It's equally clear that Sirius _does_ , he's trapped and shattered and eaten by pain, pressed up against the marble like he may turn into a statue altogether, hide inside an Ovidean metamorphosis. If only it worked that way.

And then they get to, "One," a half whisper, half sob, a last slash of the hungry Holloway rod, thank _god_ this is over –

But it's not.

The spell that fused Sirius to the marble column breaks, and his hands fall to hang limply by his side.

"What did you learn?" says Orion, his tone almost friendly. "What was today's lesson?"

"No more lies," says Sirius. His voice is hoarse and broken.

"Good boy."

But Sirius's shoulders are heaving, and it takes Regulus a breathless second to realise his brother is _laughing_. At first Regulus thinks it's just relief, but it's not. Then he thinks it's a calculated provocation, because Orion can't _stand_ not being taken seriously in the middle of a powerplay – but it's not. Finally he thinks it's a Black thing, this disposition towards inappropriate emotional responses.

One unfortunate truth about the Black family: Just because something is hereditary doesn't mean it's going to fly.

"Any questions?" says Orion, and he no longer sounds friendly.

"One," says Sirius, when he has his voice under control. "Just the one. _Why can I see Thestrals?_ "

And it quickly becomes clear why Orion Black usually keeps his control in such a tight grip: Because it takes him exactly ten seconds, as doled out by the grandfather clock, to lose it completely. Forgotten are numbers and marble columns, forgotten is all ritual, replaced by consuming, violent rage.

He is his wife's cousin, after all.

Forgotten, too, is Regulus, who bolts out of the door to do the one thing that might realistically save his brother now, which is to find their mother, and get her to intervene –

It would be impossible at any other time. But this is _it_ , the rare moment she loves Sirius unconditionally: When he is broken on the floor.

* * *

It smells burnt in the hall, and it's coming from Sirius's room.

Regulus hasn't dared going over before, but now the chronically nocturnal household – yellow light from the front room, piano music from the gramophone, their parents talking, yelling, smashing glasses; silence, pacing, closing doors - has finally quieted down. Sirius's bedroom door is locked with but the weakest of spells, which by his standards is practically an invitation. Still, Regulus spends a full twenty minutes ruminating, torn between ignoring the weird smell and being annoyed he can't identify it, before a flick of his wand springs the lock open.

"Sirius?" he whispers into the darkness. He can't hear a thing, or rather, he can, but all the sounds are outside sounds – faint draught from the open window, distant white noise of Muggle traffic, a group of happy drunks a few streets over. Other than that, there's nothing, not even a breath, or a groan, or a sob. When his eyes adjust to the weak light of the streetlamps outside, he realises the bed is empty. Rumpled, but empty.

Oh, _god_ , he thinks, they've done it, they've gone and killed him. The thought would seem ludicrous in daylight, but he's had half a night to make himself sick with worry. Or maybe, he thinks, they've gone and driven Sirius away, and he's abseiled through the window and wandered off into Muggle London, where perverts and thugs await, or so say their parents.

Then there _is_ a sound, he almost misses it, like something tiny catching fire. An orange dot glimmers on the edge of his vision, and a shadow shaped like Sirius just tilts into view, like one of those images that are both a young lady and an old hag, he is both there and not there, sits very still in the frame of the bay window, legs drawn up and hugged to his chest, the cigarette between his lips just barely illuminating his profile.

There's about a hundred things Regulus means to say, has in fact rehearsed over and over. Naturally, the first thing that comes out is, "You _idiot_!"

As if Sirius weren't in enough trouble already without the entire storey smelling like a Muggle pub.

Bright eyes dart over to him, just a brief touch of attention, before Sirius is back to watching something fascinating outside. Around his bare shoulders, a blanket billows as if underwater. In all likelihood, he's enchanted it to weigh nothing, to keep it off the skin on his back.

Well, shit.

"Are you okay?" Regulus says, not caring how ridiculous the question is.

He starts thinking he's going to stand here all night, asking questions into the void while Sirius stares mutely into the same, but suddenly there's laughter. It's the same inappropriate laughter as before, only attenuated, like it's been smothered. A pillow to the face of an unruly child.

"Have you come to tell me _I told you so_?" says Sirius.

Regulus shakes his head.

"Well, you did tell me so," says Sirius. "Said I was inviting trouble. Said I _deserved_ it."

"I didn't mean _this_ ," snaps Regulus.

There are very few surfaces in Sirius's bedroom Regulus would trust to sit on, so he tiptoes forward until he hits the edge of the bed, then perches down on the mattress.

"I've come to tell you I'm sorry," he says. "About the diary. And the ghost."

Sirius huffs. "You hated the ghost."

"I didn't," says Regulus. "I found him annoying. And I'm still sorry he's gone. Is he really –"

He wants to say _dead_ , but he's sure that's not the right word.

"He's tied to the diary," says Sirius, and he laughs again, and this time it's brighter. "Nobody said it had to be whole, though."

His hand reaches between the inner and outer window pane, where it emerges with a square piece of parchment.

"Andromeda meant it when she said the diary would never run out of pages," he says. "Boy, there were so many."

"Oh god," says Regulus. "Oh god. How many –"

"I hid them," says Sirius.

"Where?"

"Everywhere."

"The drawing room?"

"Everywhere."

"My room?"

" _Everywhere_ , Reg," says Sirius. "I love that bloody ghost, and he's not going to get banished. Not on my watch."

"They're going to kill you," whispers Regulus, and still - maybe because he's tired, maybe he's panicking - it does not feel like hyperbole. "Tell me where you put them, Sirius," he says. "I'll collect them and we bring them to Hogwarts, he can stay there, it's safe, but this is – this is insane. You're insane."

Sirius looks at him like he's the one being unreasonable. "Why are you even _here_ , Reg, shouldn't you be sleeping? Like a normal kid, bed and everything?"

"Normal," says Regulus. "Which part of this is normal? Maybe the part where I watched you turned into half a marble statue and beaten with a Holloway rod, and for _what_ –"

"Telling lies," Sirius supplies helpfully.

"So what do you think you'll get for downright sabotage?" says Regulus. " _Where did you put the pages_?"

"I forgot," says Sirius, and he straightens up, thin body wrecked by silent laughter and lingering pain. "Isn't that just hilarious?"

 _Forgot_.

That word shouldn't hit Regulus quite so hard – after all, he's forgotten plenty of things, most notably, an entire day on which he almost died – but it _does_ hit him.

It hits him where it hurts.

Maybe it's the copy of _Pensieves and the Magic of Memories_ he's just finished. Maybe it's the ghost's face that he saw with a new clarity today – a face he could have picked out of a crowd with confidence, but couldn't have said _why_ -

Maybe it has been obvious to everyone but him.

"You think they're Obliviating us," he whispers.

It is out before he's had time to think about it, but it's the only thing that makes sense anymore. Too late, he remembers the spying portrait – but a glance at their visibly disgruntled great-grandfather shows him wearing giant, violently purple, painted-on earmuffs.

Those, he decides distractedly, are also a problem for tomorrow.

"Oh, _Reggie_ ," says his brother.

"You do, do you," Regulus says.

" _You_ think they're Obliviating us," says Sirius. "You just want me to confirm."

It sounds ridiculous out loud, but then again: Welcome to Grimmauld Place, where the truth is quite strange and the past is made up.

Regulus holds on to the silence for a very long time, because he shouldn't – he _can't_ –

"Say it, then," he says, because he _needs to_.

Whatever he's expected Sirius to say – he's disappointed. His brother has got caught up by a different piece of the conversation.

"Holloway rod," Sirius says thoughtfully. "So that's what it's called. Trust the Slytherin."

For the first time, he turns his head fully towards Regulus, bright eyes wide open, focusing on a point somewhere behind his head.

Two things fight for Regulus's attention.

"Are you Confunded?" is the first that comes out. "Oh god, your _face_ ," is the second.

Sirius sways like there's a breeze. "Yeah," he says, to one or the other question. Or both. "You're the pretty one now, Reg. It's a great responsibility."

"Tell me where you put the pages," says Regulus.

"I want them to see the ghost," says Sirius. "I want them to look in his adorable little face and tell him – tell him why they hate him so much – why they don't seem to like us any better, even though we are – _we are still here_."

He's rambling, a confused hand dragging through his hair, glowing cigarette end hanging limply from his bruised fingers, and Regulus knows, rather than cut his losses, Sirius is going to start the same fight tomorrow, and he's going to lose just as terribly, and they'll pull him out of Hogwarts to be home-schooled, and then Grimmauld Place will eat him.

"Sirius, look at yourself," he hisses, looking around the room for that hand mirror he's seen Sirius handling before. "You can't risk it. Just for once in your life, lie low and _avoid trouble_."

He finds the mirror lying face down on the desk, and Regulus springs up to grab it before Sirius can yelp and protest, sticks it in his face like an accusation.

There's a moment of terrible silence.

Then a third voice says, "Sirius, what the _fuck_? I've been trying to reach you all night!" It's as real as if he were standing here in the room with them.

"Maybe I don't _want_ to talk to you," says Sirius. It comes out as a bit of a whine.

"Well, tough luck, princess, here I am."

Regulus looks around for the source of the disembodied voice before he realises it's coming from the mirror he's holding.

" _Potter_?" he says.

"Regulus?" says the mirror. "Oh, good. Suck it up, Sirius, this conversation is happening with or without you."

"Oh, _piss off_." Sirius settles back into the window frame, wincing as he does so.

Regulus is still staring at the mirror in his hands, where an angry and not entirely awake James Potter is staring back at him.

"Do you even know how many enchantments protect Grimmauld Place from this sort of thing?" Regulus asks.

"What? Oh, you mean this little mirror contraption," says Potter. "Yeah, pretty much. We're intimately familiar with every single one of them. What's wrong with Sirius?"

Regulus hesitates. But it's a bit late for their usual obfuscation tactics. "To be frank," he says, "there's a bit of a list."

"Is he hurt?" says Potter. "He looks hurt. Turn the light up and let me have a proper look at him."

Sirius is emphatically shaking his head, and Regulus has a lightbulb idea. Completely mad, he supposes, and unfortunately inevitable.

"I have something better," says Regulus. "Can you take him in for a few days? I'll send him through the Floo in a moment."

" _What_?" says Sirius. "No, he won't."

"Shut up, princess. Grown-ups are talking. Of course I can take him, Regulus." says Potter. However, he looks suspicious rather than overjoyed. "Why, though? What happened?"

"He did something dumb and I need to clean it up," says Regulus.

"Story of my life," mumbles Potter.

"It's possibly a tad dumber than what you're used to," says Regulus. "I need to do this before our parents find out."

It's another inch off the secret they've been so committed to keeping – but for what? The lesser evil? The lesser evil is what brought them here.

"Seriously, Regulus?" says Potter, in a voice of someone who's dealt with this bullshit before. "No. Don't do that. Come with him, I daresay we have room enough. It's only five days until the first, and things will calm down until Christmas, yeah?"

"Oh, Jamesie. Bless," says Sirius softly.

"Oh, for _fuck's_ sake," says Potter. "Getting the pair of you to leave – honestly, it's like pulling teeth. It's like you _like_ it there."

Regulus shakes his head, thinks of the tiny ghost and how it shouted down Mother. He thinks of bravery. "It's really not the sort of thing that sorts itself out," he says. "Kreacher will help me. I'll be _fine_."

Potter gives him a long, hard look, and Regulus is starting to realise why Sirius picked this boy as his brother-in-arms. " _Fine_?" he says. "Regulus Betelgeuse Black, you haven't been fine a day in your life. You're scared of water and you never learned to breathe correctly. And you still think _Sirius_ caught the short end of the stick?"

Regulus fully expects his brother to protest, but nothing. Then he fully expects himself to protest, and apparently that's not happening, either. "Plenty of short ends around here," he mutters. "And it's Arcturus."

"No-one likes a martyr, Regulus, not even your parents," says Potter. "Come with him."

Incidentally, one thing one learns by hanging around in Grimmauld Place is how to detect a good provocation.

"Shut up, Potter," says Regulus. "Expect my idiot brother in ten minutes. He's Confunded, or something like it, so don't expect him to make too much sense for a while, and he's –"

"Hurt," says Potter, and his voice is low and angry. "I know."

Regulus swallows. This is not something that leaves the family, ever. Ordinarily, Sirius would spend the remainder of the holidays locked up in his room, and set out for Hogwarts under three layers of shoddy concealment charms. But Regulus can't see an alternative.

"Potter. The Black family has the country's high society and most of the Wizengamot behind them," he says. "Just so you're warned, it looks a bit…"

He takes in his brother's swollen face, his bruised jaw, whatever he's hiding under that blanket. "Well, it looks a bit bad…," he concedes. "Please, whatever you're thinking of doing – whatever your _parents_ may think of doing – it'll backfire."

Potter nods, his lips a tight line. "Come with him," he says again, and closes off the call.

Regulus bullies his brother back into an upward position. He winces at the noises of pain Sirius makes when being manhandled, and tells him to shut up, then rummages in a drawer for the softest shirt he can find. He coaxes the blanket off his brother and acknowledges the chaos underneath just long enough to ask:

"Do you trust my healing spells?"

As Sirius vehemently shakes his head, Regulus says, "Good, me neither," and manoeuvres his brother into the shirt. No time to pack anything, but he summons Sirius's wand from across the room.

Sirius is not exactly cooperating, as such, but the Confundus does make him a little more suggestible, and Regulus has him downstairs in the living room with surprisingly little noise. Regulus thanks whatever god may listen that their parents have not yet thought of locking the Floo powder away, and quickly conjures the keyspell that unscrambles the magical fire and allows Sirius a safe passage out of Grimmauld Place.

Of course, Sirius chooses that very moment to regain his speech.

"Reg," he says. "Come with me, it's not safe here, it's not safe – _look at me_ –"

"No, I _can't_ ," says Regulus. "Someone has to make sure they never see that ghost again, or they will kill you -"

 _Oh please_ , says a voice inside his head. _Do you honestly think they could get away with murder?_

But there's an eerie feeling, too, a sickly, weightless, ancient feeling, like one gets when one enters an abandoned building, or hops off the Knight Bus in the wrong neighbourhood. Like something is terribly, terribly wrong. Like he already knows the answer to that question.

"He's right, you know," says Sirius. "Father's right."

Regulus pauses his movements. "…Listen, I know you're Confunded, but –"

"He says I'm poisoning your mind," says Sirius. "So here goes. Poison for Reggie. I keep -" he draws a deep breath. "I keep forgetting, so I wrote it down."

He unfolds the piece of parchment he'd retrieved from the window, taps it with his wand until words break through the surface, like they're floating up from the deep sea.

Swaying dangerously, he says, "His name is Altair. And he was a squib."

Regulus feels his eyes narrow. "Squibs don't turn into ghosts," he says, and Sirius laughs.

"Who taught you that?" he says, and Regulus shoves him backwards into the green flames.

He hopes Potter is there to catch him on the other end.

* * *

Regulus steps back then. His mind certainly feels like it's been through the hoops, but somehow, things seem to come together, like he's caught on the edge of a dark and terrible secret, and he doesn't know the shape and the size of it, just that it all started in Blackpool, that long-lost day when he was five.

 _Pages_ , he thinks. _Pages, Regulus. Focus_. If they find out that the ghost is still here, it'll all be over.

"Altair," he whispers under his breath, trying out the name in the emptiness of the living room. It echoes.

"Altair, _Altair_ ," he says. "Little ghost, you have to leave. You can't ever come back. I'm sorry you're dead, but they'll kill Sirius, too."

The living room is spacious, full of cabinets, the cabinets full of books and dark artefacts and things that will bite him, it's just _one room_ and yet a million places to hide a piece of parchment, and momentarily he falters at the sheer size of the task he's set himself: To clean up after his idiot brother.

And then he remembers his brother's face when he said, "Twelve", and he tries to remember how much time Sirius has spent in Father's office over the years, and he can't. Payback time, then.

His mother saves him the trouble. He hasn't even started, still rooted to the floor in the middle of the living room, when he hears the door open behind him.

"And what do you think you're doing at this time of night?" she says –

\- and he wants to be cunning, and he wants to be clever, and he wants to be faithful, and he even wants to be brave. All four require that he not give this away. That he keep this one secret, tell this one single lie. But he needs to _know_.

"Who was Altair?" he asks.

And after the long, terrible silence has passed, she says, "Turn around, Regulus. Look at me."

And he does.

* * *

_To be continued._


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** A suicide attempt by a teenager; questionable, if largely well-meant advice with regard to an abusive situation; a baby in danger; dark-ish magic with skin  & knives & some body horror?; homophobia.
> 
> **Note 1:** Basically, please heed the warnings. Look, I know it's tempting to read dark shit when you're feeling low, but please, please take care of yourselves, because this here probably won't make you feel any better. Also, some of the advice given by the characters may sound helpful, but it's probably not. If you're feeling depressed, or vulnerable, there's a ton of better things you could be reading. Or phone up a friend, or someone in your family, or a crisis hotline. Someone out there will listen to you, and your story is important. You're important!
> 
> **Note 2:** Honestly, though, thank you so much for your wonderful comments on this story. As always, I'd love to hear what you think! This chapter got a bit out of control in terms of length and, ah, direction, and I apologise in advance…

There isn't much left of him, after.

Regulus sleeps, fitful dreams he can't make sense of, holiday snapshots, remember when?, the pier, the chippy, the Muggle shop fronts, the pumpkin ice cream cone he dropped in the sand, the black-haired boy who lets him share his, who grabs his arm and races him to the shore, and he stumbles over his short legs, skins his knees, only cries when they're looking. Regulus gasps awake and they dissolve like foam on the water; like they have never been real.

He tries to reach out, but they slip through his fingers, they fall away from him, or he falls, someone is falling, falling. A pale luminous face sinks beneath the waves. A diary flutters and closes forever.

It is winter in Blackpool when he returns, and the beach is empty, no tourists, no seagulls, no hateful family; the shops are boarded up. The skies are a drab grey, sheets of rain off in the distance. He's walked for miles, but when he looks back, the waves have washed away his footprints, left nothing but a blank, malleable slate.

If he understood physics – if he knew the position of every single grain of sand, knew the angle and velocity of every single wave – maybe then he could retrace his steps, figure out where he came from, where it all began to go wrong. But all he has left is this thin slice of _now_ , wet sand beneath his feet, starless sky above, and a steel-grey hungry sea in front.

Regulus wakes, again, to a feeling of loss so profound and incomprehensive, he flinches at the enormity of it. That one black hole, that single death-shaped day when he was five, has grown and eaten and swallowed everything, and his thin slice of _now_ is all that separates him from that oblivion, that black mass, that cancer, that nothing.

He flees it, at first.

He goes to Sirius's room. His brother isn't there, the bed is rumpled but empty, and panic is lapping at his foundations. But something is still rational. Something tells him Sirius can't be far, it's gone three in the morning, his things are still here. If he listens closely, he can hear his ears still ringing, a fight maybe, yelling, slashing, whispers of darkness.

Should he wait here for his brother?

But this is not where they meet.

He tiptoes past his parents' bedroom and goes up to the roof. The night sky is clear, but the lights of Muggle London blunt it, turn it into something less than ordinary. His Astronomy is slipping, solitary stars unwilling to cluster into constellations. Gemini rising in the East. The summer triangle setting in the West, Deneb, Vega, and the third one, that bright, nameless star; First Year knowledge. He feels overwrought and stupid. Already he's forgotten what he came here for.

He goes to the kitchen, but Kreacher is asleep, of course, it's gone three in the morning, what is he _thinking_ , clearly he's not. While he's here, he pockets a knife.

He returns to his own room, and there's his diary on the desk, fallen into disuse over the years, the pages wiped blank. He remembers writing in it, the same thing over and over again, but what? – his mind feels empty, or too full, he's not sure, and only a single thing sticks with him now:

Blackpool. The shore, the skies, the hungry sea.

Something happened in Blackpool. And he tries to remember, he tries and tries and tries, light on the water, foam on the waves, because something happened, something so, so important, but the only thing that comes to mind is drowning.

So he writes about drowning.

He writes and writes and writes, lest he forgets about drowning, too.

He writes until morning, goes down for breakfast, diary hidden in his robes. The table is laid for four, and he sits through his mother's yelling when she finds out Sirius has gone, but of course he can't tell her where his brother is, it's slipped his mind so thoroughly. Then he goes up to his room and writes and writes and writes again, he writes of the water closing all around him, the walls are water, the ceiling is water, the parchment is water, his hands are water, and it's all coming for him. He writes till his fingers bleed, and then he writes more, and -

\- come midnight, he stops.

The waters aren't rushing anymore, but not because he's safe. He's just at the end of it, the bottom of the sea, where everything is clear and cool and green, and he knows that's how he's going to die.

And he thinks, quietly: _No_.

He thinks: _Not like that_.

He looks at his diary, the pages and pages and pages in his tiny handwriting, his beautiful calligraphy, paragraphs and paragraphs on drowning, not a single drawing, not a single map, but why he thinks of drawings and maps now, he doesn't even know.

This is what he does know: The diary can't stay in Grimmauld Place. This is a place where diaries burn, where the past meanders like a temperamental river, and memories dissolve like foam on the waves, and then even this will be lost to him:

The first thing. The last. Drowning.

He tried to flee it, but here it still is. He guards it, now, with all he has got: That intimacy with death, that near miss, that inexplicable _loss_ (that oblivion, that black mass, that cancer, that nothing). So he wraps up his diary and tells Lethe to take it to Sirius, wherever he is now. He thinks of returning to Hogwarts, four days from now, green ties and dungeons and _noise_ and a common room under the lake, and thinks, again: _No_.

And he goes back on the roof, because he thinks he could perhaps watch the stars while he's waiting, they'll be ancient and calm when he's so young and scared. He thinks maybe their light will show him _home_.

But the roof is as it always is: White noise from the Muggles' traffic, their orange streetlights, the sky they bleached out, an ambulance speeding in the faraway distance. Oh, mercy. He's already home.

The pain tethers him to the proximal world, to his body, to the flagstones underneath and the wall in his back, and he cannot look up, can only look deep, deep inside, and down, heart fluttering like a captured Snitch, metal wings digging _out_ , and he thinks: Blood of the covenant. Colour of life. Iron and salt, the original ocean, first life on earth, and last.

There is no light, and it hurts all the way.

Just a little bit longer, he tells himself. Just five more minutes. He tries to hold out his hand in front of him, and it's heavy, shaking, blurring, and he tells himself, _Imagine_ , like he can touch it now, that thing he lost.

He thinks: _Almost_.

"Idiot, idiot, idiot," is what he hears then, cold water, the sea all around him, salt, iron, chest tight, head light, "Idiot, idiot," slaps, spells, upright, drop, fire, flight, soft orders in a voice he barely remembers, "Idiot," says Sirius, and there's just one thing he knows to reply to his brother, which is "pot, kettle, black," laughter, water, salt, gotcha.

* * *

He's had mornings like this before, where he feels like he's submerged in molasses and can't remember a thing. The scent of sugar and rose and vanilla, a slow, dark, sweet _now_ , where it takes him twenty minutes to remember he even has eyes, and another twenty to crack them open, just a bit.

Mother got it wrong, thinks Regulus. In fairness, so has he. The colour of life is not the green of underwater light, and it's not the bright painful red on the roof of Grimmauld Place. It's the buttery yellow of painted walls, the magenta of a knitted blanket, the orange of a single baby sock on the floor, the rainbow light spilled through a half open stained glass window.

He doesn't know why he thinks _nursery_. Surely his own nursery never looked remotely like this.

There are voices, and they've been talking for a while.

" – we take this outside?"

"I'm not leaving him. He turns into an idiot when he's alone."

"Well. You're not wrong."

It's almost too easy to tune them out, what with the waves still rolling gently onto a desolate shore, lapping at the debris they left there. He's curled up on a sofa, covered in a feather-light blanket. Everything is numb, except when he stirs; his limbs feel like they're full of glass, not painful, just grinding. So he lies still.

But some words break through. Hard words like splinters that drive into his skin, bringing with them frazzles of conversation.

" – kill me this time."

"He wouldn't. You're the heir, he needs you."

"Yeah. … I'm just lucky Reg is such a –"

"Such a what?"

"A _child_. Father hates that Mother loves him so. Thinks it makes him weak."

There's a long pause. Then: "He's not weak. And it's not love that made him that way."

Sirius laughs softly. He is close, closer than Regulus had thought; sitting cross-legged on the floor at the end of the sofa, leaning forward with his head bent. Regulus can see his mussed hair, the tired line of his shoulders in a garish shirt that must be one of Potter's. Sirius's hands are worrying an old plush toy; a pink stuffed dog with floppy ears and a balding belly. His fingers are pale, but healed of their bruises.

Their voices wash over him, gentle ebb and flow of the sea. Regulus tries to sink back into sleep or whatever that was. These things they think he is, weak or strong or a child or an idiot, he's none of them. He's just empty.

A question reverberates, an echo. "But why _can_ I see Thestrals?" Did he hear Sirius ask that before?

"You can?"

"Ever since First Year. James thought I was making them up. I had to dare him to pull their tails." A pause. "I thought I had the answer, yesterday. I must have, I shouted it in my mother's face... But now it keeps slipping away. Like a dream, or a – a nightmare. I try to grab it and there's nothing. Who died, Andromeda?"

"I can't tell you that. I'm sorry."

Regulus's vision has gradually lost its singular focus, and now he notices her in the periphery, a woman, tall, imposing. A resigned sort of horror seizes him, until he hears her speak again. A clear voice, familiar, almost forgotten.

"What now, Sirius?" says Andromeda. "Are you going back to the Potters?"

Sirius shakes his head. "Didn't work out," he says.

"I'm sorry."

His brother raises his head from that ratty plush toy, just briefly enough that Regulus can see his face has been healed, too.

"James's parents are great," says Sirius. "The best. But – " he pauses. "Not right now? Does that make sense?"

Andromeda acknowledges that conflict with a nod.

"They took photos," says Sirius, flopping the dog's ear inside and out. "Of my face, and - and the rest. For evidence, they said. For when I need it. They gave me a potion that made me sleep."

Andromeda lets a long moment pass. Then she says, "They mean well, the Potters."

"Yeah," says Sirius. It's a good thing the plush dog is so sturdy. It looks like it has survived generations of careless children's hands.

"They wouldn't let me go," he says. "Not even when I could think again. Not even when Lethe brought my brother's – his note?" He pauses, thinking. "His magnum opus? I'll have to ask him when he's awake. They wouldn't let me go; I had to run away. _I had to run home_."

Andromeda nods again. "And a good thing you did," she says. "You saved your brother, you hear that? You saved his life. Do not regret this one bit."

Sirius laughs, a short, out-of-place sound. "You saved him. I just dragged him here."

"Potions and spells," says Andromeda, waving a hand dismissively. "As for your next step –"

His brother shrugs. "Can't go back to the Potters," he says. "I mean, _I_ could, probably. Our parents really only need one of us, do they? They'd shape him up quickly enough. But we can't both go. Not where they can find us."

There's another long pause. "I wish I could tell you something different," says Andromeda.

"They don't know where you live, do they?" says Sirius, and there's something in his voice – like a sprig of hope that he is ready to squash.

"Sirius, no," says Andromeda. Her tone is gentle, but it barely cushions the weight of her words. "I can't. I can't hide you from them; I'm a blood traitor, married to a Mudblood, mother of another. If they find you two here, they'll paint the walls with us."

" _Please,_ Andromeda, it's just four days until the new school year," says Sirius. He looks up. "I can't – _we_ can't go back. Please don't make us."

But Andromeda merely shakes her head.

The plush dog falls to the carpeted floor with barely a sound as Sirius springs up. "Can I show you something?" he says.

"Sirius, don't."

"The Potters couldn't heal all of me," says Sirius. "Not the dark magic. It'll get worse before it gets better, always does." Regulus can see in his tense posture that his brother is fighting a habit, that decade old impulse to _hide_ , even as he grabs the hem of his shirt and pulls it up, exposing his back.

"Fucking hell," says Andromeda, and Sirius pulls down his shirt, grateful for the quick response. He even laughs a little.

"Made you swear, posh girl," he says.

"The Holloway rods?" she asks.

Sirius's face loses all traces of humour. "Is that all you Slytherins can focus on?" he snaps.

"My father has been telling Uncle Orion for years to dispose of them," says Andromeda. "I'm very sorry, Sirius, that looks as if it hurts. How many did you get?"

"Does it matter?" says Sirius. " _Please_ , Andromeda –"

"Numbers matter in Dark Magic," says Andromeda. "These things _feed_. Too many and –" she makes a hand gesture clearly conveying the word _boom_. "How many?"

It's a question, and Regulus knows the answer. It doesn't even occur to him not to speak.

"Sixteen," he whispers.

His utterance is met with a pause, and a lot more attention than Regulus feels capable of handling right now.

"Oh yeah, did I mention?" says Sirius. "They made him watch."

Andromeda, to her credit, looks like she can't decide which of these revelations are more outrageous. "Is everyone insane in this family?" she mutters. "Well. First things first."

She moves over to the sofa to sit on the arm rest. "Hey, littlest cousin," she says. "Didn't expect you to be awake just yet. How are you feeling?"

One of her hands is on his head, running gently through his hair. Regulus doesn't know what to think about that.

"Thirsty," he answers truthfully.

"Thought so," says Andromeda. "Can you sit up for me?" Now that hand is on the back of his neck, a gentle pressure guiding him upwards. "Slowly," she says. "There we go, Reg, nice and slow."

He feels exhausted just from sitting up, light-headed, nauseous, half wishing he hadn't spoken up in the first place. Andromeda retrieves a glass of water from a nearby table, and he reaches for it. But his fingers fail to curl around it, instead they bump against it, useless, numb; something grinding inside whenever he moves his hands. He stares down at them, failing to understand why they're all bandaged up, all the way into his sleeves, but it's something he did, isn't it? Something enormous.

His chest is suddenly tight with an unnameable regret, and he breathes reflexively, and now Andromeda's arm is around him, presses him close. "It's all right, Reg," she says. "You're all right. It's the dreamless sleep potion, it makes you a bit disoriented."

He doesn't feel all right. His heart is racing, feebly, fluttering like a hummingbird in a too tight cage. He's fighting for breath, but he can't get a deep one. It's the feeling one gets high up in the air, a moment before the Bludger hits. The weightlessness before the drop. Andromeda is close, much too close, but out of nowhere, some sense of duty makes him lean in, close his eyes, and try to relax into what is unmistakeably a hug. _It's all right_. Dropping.

"Stop coddling him," snaps Sirius. "After what he did? He'll start thinking it was a good idea!"

His brother is angry. That's something Regulus is more at home with than awkward hugs and kind words.

"I'm sorry," he breathes, even as Andromeda finally lifts to glass to his lips and lets him drink, small sips of salty-tasting water down his parched throat, until it is all gone. She holds him for a little while longer.

"It's not a reward, Sirius," says Andromeda finally. "Kindness. It's what you two deserve just for being kids."

Sirius is standing in the middle of the nursery, cross-armed and, well, just generally cross. Andromeda lets Regulus down gently and he sinks back onto the sofa, certain the water is laced with something that makes him float, uncaring, or careless. Andromeda then gets up and gives Sirius a hug, too. At first, he lets it happen with even less grace than Regulus – but then, he turns into it, his whole body, and just clings. Of course, he has more experience with that sort of thing. Regulus is willing to bet that Potter gives him lots of hugs.

Maybe if he could explain himself properly, thinks Regulus, maybe then Sirius wouldn't be so angry. Maybe if he could explain how he's standing on an unnamed beach all alone, his footprints washed away by the relentless sea. But that is just it. How can he explain how he ended up here, when that crooked path has been obscured?

"Then be kind, Andromeda," says Sirius, when the hug has been going on for long enough. "Please let us just hide here. Just for four days. We'll be out of here by nine on Saturday, and I _promise_ we won't tell anyone we were ever here."

Andromeda looks so soft, now that she's a mother, and her voice is so soft, too, thinks Regulus, but her words are hard as steel. "You know I can't," she says, and Sirius retreats from her, closes off, that sprig of hope well and truly trampled. In the rainbow light from the stained glass window, wearing that purple shirt of Potter's, that guarded expression on his face, he looks like an entirely new person.

"Then what do we do?" asks Sirius, and that, too, is new.

Andromeda seems to have picked up on it, too, and she gives him a long, appraising look. "You survive," she says.

"Clearly our specialty," says Sirius, and his voice drips with sarcasm. "I mean, just look at us."

Andromeda sighs. "I know all about it, Sirius," she says. "Trust me, I grew up in this family, too, and here I still am."

Here, Regulus thinks, is a brightly lit nursery in a small London walk-up. It occurs to him that Andromeda could have done worse.

"Say, Sirius," adds Andromeda. "Let me heal your back while I impart my wisdom on you, how does that sound?"

Sirius snorts. "Euphemia Potter couldn't do it, and she used to be a Healer."

"Euphemia Potter couldn't do it because she didn't want to hurt you," says Andromeda. "It's Dark Magic, it'll sting a bit to remove, but letting it decay naturally will take months. Up for it?

"Oh, all right," says Sirius. "It'll pass the time."

Andromeda nods. "I'll just go get some things."

While she's gone, Sirius settles back down next to the sofa. He's still avoiding Regulus's gaze, but fair's fair, Regulus is avoiding his.

"For the record," says Sirius. "I still think you're an idiot." He picks up the pink plush dog again, turning it in his hands.

His brother doesn't seem to be in the mood for apologies, so Regulus just says, "Okay."

"Just don't do it again."

Regulus wants to explain, at this point. About reaching out and touching that thing they lost. That oblivion, that death-shaped hole in their past. It seems farther away than ever now, and he supposes he's glad. It sort of scares him now.

But he doesn't have the words, so they listen, for a moment, to the noises of a busy Muggle street outside the nursery windows, to Andromeda speaking in soft, lovely tones to her baby in the other room, to the silence that is not a cocoon now. Just a wall between them.

Andromeda returns, then, and Sirius looks up with almost a smile.

"Baby all right?"

"Just dreaming," says Andromeda. "Think I could convince her to fall back asleep."

She sets down a number of things on the floor next to Sirius – a clean flannel, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a knife, her wand, a bowl full of what looks like milk – and settles down cross-legged on the floor next to Sirius.

"Shirt off," she commands, and Sirius obliges after just a moment's hesitation. For a long minute, Andromeda just assesses the damage.

"Three," she says finally. "I'll need to make three incisions to pull it all out. Can't numb it, the darkness wraps around the nerves. Do you want to proceed?"

"Just get on with it," says Sirius.

"All right," says Andromeda. "Where were we?" She soaks the flannel in alcohol and dabs at a bit of skin just under Sirius's ribcage.

"You were going to tell us all about surviving in this family," says Sirius, sounding almost cheerful.

"Indeed," says Andromeda. "I know all about that. I did it. You're in survival mode now. You give them exactly what they want, something fake, something less than yourselves. Think of it as hibernation."

"We're not bears," Sirius points out, and then gives an uncharacteristic yelp of surprised pain. "Bloody hell, woman."

"No," says Andromeda, pressing the flannel against the cut she just made. "You're Blacks.

You go home. You do as they say. You do not talk back. They won't question it; they think it's what they're owed."

The flannel, Regulus notes with some sort of detached horror, comes back covered in a black, almost oily substance. It's probably a good thing Sirius can't see it.

"It's just four days," says Andromeda. "And then you're both safe at Hogwarts. Think you can make it four days?"

"Four days," says Sirius. "Four _years_ of this. Until he's seventeen."

"But you don't have to do it all at once," says Andromeda. "It's one day at a time." She holds her wand out, gives it a small, precise jab, and mutters a string of Latin.

Sirius pauses. He has turned pale. "Andromeda? What are you doing?"

"Don't look," says Andromeda.

Regulus is looking, though. Something has wrapped around the tip of the wand – something stringy, something black, a thin, half-alive strand of darkness. It looks, he supposes, like the damp hair found in clogged drains. Except it's also moving.

Andromeda is slowly turning her wand clockwise around its long axis, pulling that strand of darkness out of Sirius's back, a single strand at first, then a silky, tangled mess, knotting and twisting.

"Then, for Christmas," she continues, as if she weren't just slowly summoning a manifestation of dark magic, "you stay at Hogwarts. Tell them you have to study. The teachers can override your parents' wishes if they think your performance is lacking – Slughorn did it for me, no questions asked. I just had to promise to grace his terrible New Year's Party with my ancient and noble presence."

"That's Slughorn, though," breathes Sirius. He's squeezing the pink plush toy now, his knuckles white.

"McGonagall will be harder to convince," says Andromeda. "Sign up for fifth year Transfiguration if need be, then neither of you will be lying." She smiles without humour, wand still turning. "Or tell your friend James to bring those photos. No harm in a good guilt trip."

"You complete Slytherin," says Sirius. Regulus is surprised to see him taking an interest in this frankly terrible plan, and it takes him a moment to figure out why: Because there's plotting now. Taking control.

"Oh, you have no idea," says Andromeda. "If all else fails, there's a clearing in the Forbidden Forest, where the dolmens are. Do you know it?"

Sirius nods. Of _course_ he does.

"There's a fungus growing on the rocks. Completely harmless, but a lick of it will give you all the symptoms of Dragon Pox. Which means –"

"Two weeks of quarantine in the hospital wing," says Sirius, and this time he is unmistakeable smiling. "Have I said? You _Slytherin_."

"Live and learn, ickle Gryffindor," says Andromeda. "Better than Christmas at Grimmauld Place. Deep breath now."

She braces one hand against Sirius shoulder and pulls with the other. A tangled nest of darkness finally comes free, wrapped around her wand like the world's worst candyfloss. She drops the wand in the bowl of milk, and the darkness hisses and dies, turning the milk a stomach-churning shade of anthracite.

Sirius seems too surprised to cry out. "What the –" he starts, staring at the bowl of milk.

"Same goes for Easter," says Andromeda, moving the bowl outside his field of view. "Even closer to the exams, would be a shame to miss that valuable revision time, don't you think?"

She closes the incision she made with a flick of her wand. "That was the worst of it," she says. "But I'll need to make two more. Do you want to take a break?"

Sirius waves an impatient hand, motioning her to get on with it, and Andromeda does.

"Now," she says, picking up the knife again. "Let me tell you all about how to minimise the Howlers, angry letters, and complete psycho _meltdowns_ by being an exemplary little shit of a Pureblood wanker while at Hogwarts. Because you know they have eyes there. … You do know that, don't you?"

Sirius swallows. Regulus notices he's back to squeezing the plush toy.

"Top marks, all the time," says Andromeda. "I don't care if it puts a crimp in your social life. No step out of the line. No late-night excursions to the Astronomy Tower –"

For the first time, Sirius looks at Regulus properly, in a shared understanding that they won't comment on this.

"Either of you take Muggle Studies?" says Andromeda.

Sirius looks shifty.

" _What_?" exclaims Regulus, the shock cutting through even the thick fog currently occupying his brain.

"Drop it immediately," says Andromeda. "Have Professor Barnaby purge it from your records – she'll do it, she has Pureblood families send her explicit Howlers every other week." She sighs. "You have no right to call _anyone_ an idiot, Sirius, love."

She is again drawing strands of damp, slick darkness from Sirius's back. "I suppose you can't both win the Quidditch Cup," she muses. "They'll be happier with a Slytherin victory, of course, so Sirius, do you suppose you could let your brother win?"

" _What_?" says Sirius.

" _Let_ me?" says Regulus.

"Just consider it," says Andromeda with a hint of frustration in her voice. "There's more important things than Quidditch. Like keeping your parents happy."

"I don't think they _want_ to be happy," says Sirius sullenly. "They could be. They have everything. Their problem is that they _hate_ everything, too."

"At least don't make it easier for them," snaps Andromeda.

"Suppose you're telling me to ditch my friends, too?" says Sirius. "My parents detest them immensely."

Unexpectedly, Andromeda shakes her head. "Of course not," she says. "Your friends make you happy. And if you're keeping up this charade, you'll need people who know the real you. Life is not all theatre; and it's so easy to get lost…"

She pulls hard at a particularly stubborn string, and Sirius winces visibly.

"Doesn't mean you can't update your social circle once in a while," says Andromeda delicately. "Consider getting yourself a girlfriend. A nice, respectable, Pureblood one."

"A _girlfriend_ ," says Sirius, and his face turns a very peculiar shade of green.

"A respectable one," repeats Andromeda.

Unexpectedly, Sirius laughs. "I'm not questioning your expertise or anything, Andromeda," he says. "But I distinctly remember you getting knocked up in Seventh Year. By the scion of the Noble and Most Ancient House of _Tonks_."

"Ha bloody ha," says Andromeda, depositing another twisty cloud of darkness in the bowl of milk, which is now curdling. "I was seventeen and very mature. But if you want to follow my example, and I suggest you do, best look no further then Sixth Year."

Sirius thinks back. Then he says, "Oh god. Howard the Beautiful? I thought that was a joke!"

"That's right," says Andromeda. "Howard Rowle. My very own respectable Pureblood pretend boyfriend."

"What did he get out of it?" says Sirius.

Andromeda picks up the knife again. "Howie's gayer than Uncle Alphard three mimosas into Sunday brunch," she informs them distractedly. "And obviously that didn't sit well with his family. He got out, too, has his own fortune-telling business in Camden now."

Sirius doesn't even react to the new incision she makes on his back. Instead, he thinks long and hard. Eventually he says, in a rather small voice, "Uncle Alphard is gay?"

"Didn't you ever wonder why you are not allowed to see him anymore?" says Andromeda.

"I just sort of assumed it was just their normal crazy," says Sirius.

"Oh, it is," says Andromeda.

"Huh," says Sirius, and sinks back into deep thought.

For a while, Andromeda works in silence, drawing strands of darkness from underneath Sirius's skin. The load has lightened considerably now, and the darkness twists feebly. Like it's dying.

"Promise me," says Andromeda eventually. "Promise me you'll try. It's unfair, I know. But you can't escape it right now, because they _will_ find you, and they _will_ drag you back, and unfortunately they have every right to. Just try not to make it worse. Those years will seem long, but you'll have the rest of your lives to look forward to. And -"

She drowns the last twisted wad of darkness in the milk, which is by now black and viscid. A muttered spell makes the wand light up base to tip, impossibly bright, burning away the sticky residue.

"It's worth it," she says. "I promise. Just you wait."

"Thanks," mutters Sirius, and barely waits for her to spell the incision close before he wriggles back into his shirt. He's taking deep, steady breaths now.

"So, to summarise," he says. "We'll try not to see them for most of the year. And we behave. Okay. I get that. Then we return next summer –"

"A lot can happen in a year," Andromeda reminds him. "You cross that bridge when you get to it."

"I guess Blackpool won't be so bad," says Sirius thoughtfully, clearly trying to talk himself into the idea. "Three weeks on the beach, a lot space to hide in –"

And then his eyes widen. " _Bloody hell_!" he shouts. "I nearly forgot again!"

"Sirius," says Andromeda, and her voice, in contrast, is calm, almost hypnotic. "Whatever you think you have unearthed in the past, _leave it alone_. It won't help you. It _will_ hurt you. Let it go."

Regulus looks slowly between the two, not following, not following at all, except for this: Oblivion. A sense of loss. A death-shaped hole in the past. And _Blackpool_ –

_Blackpool_ –

But he can't get hold of it.

Sirius is looking at Andromeda now, oddly and, as always, too clever for his own good. "You were there, in Blackpool. Every year."

"Let it go, Sirius," says Andromeda. "Forget all about it."

Far from it, Sirius springs up. He's agitated now, angry, and throws the first thing in sight: The pink plush dog. A Bludger it is not, hitting the wall with a deeply unsatisfying _flop_.

"I bloody well will, won't I?" he shouts. "Because she –"

"You have to choose now, Sirius," Andromeda says sharply. "Between past and future. Between what you lost, and _what you still have_."

It makes Sirius stop in his tracks, which is probably a good thing, because in his search for things to throw he is just about to pick up the bowl of black, congealed milk and then they'd probably have to evacuate the building, muses Regulus, who has lost track of the conversation some time ago but is still very aware of where they put the Dark Magic.

"You know what she is!" shouts Sirius. "You know what she did! _How can you make us go back?_ "

The question hangs heavy in the air, and Andromeda opens her mouth to say something undoubtedly calm, reassuring, and just this side of callous. But before she can say anything, a new sound cuts through the stifling August air:

A baby, crying.

"Brilliant," mutters Andromeda. "Now you've gone and woken her. Let me just –"

But she stops in her tracks. Because there is another voice, clear as day, cooing, warm, friendly.

_Well, little girl, aren't you just adorable! Want to go look for mama?_

For a split second, the three of them are still, completely unable to move.

The sound Andromeda makes is not quite speech and not quite a scream, just high-pitched and terrified. "Dora!" she breathes, and bolts, positively bolts, out of the nursery, drawing her wand running.

And then they're alone.

Sirius looks like he's about to vomit, and Regulus certainly feels like it. Still, Sirius rights himself, moves over to the sofa in quick steps and tugs and pulls and shoves until Regulus is some approximation of upright, Sirius's arm around his shoulders, and not a hundred per cent sure he didn't actually faint somewhere in the middle.

"We face her standing," murmurs Sirius, even as Regulus looks down on himself and dimly realises he's wearing a shirt about six sizes too big, likely belonging to the elusive Ted, and emblazoned with a Muggle band logo.

Things absolutely can't get any worse.

"Together?" Regulus asks, voice still barely above a whisper.

"Yep," says Sirius, and winks at him.

And then Walburga enters the room, carrying one-year-old Nymphadora casually on her hip. Regulus feels he's about to hurl for real at the sight of his mother this close to an actual _child_ , half expecting her to throw the baby through the open stained glass window onto the Muggle street below.

The baby has one tiny fist wrapped around Walburga's shamelessly drawn wand. The Mudblood looks like a Black, Regulus thinks, with her gravity-defying tuft of dark her, her bright and startled eyes. He bets Mother hates it.

Behind them, Andromeda slips into the room, looking like her heart is breaking, or exploding, a tight grip on her own wand, but for what? Her eyes never leave her daughter.

At the sight of her sons, Walburga smiles. "There you are," she says. "I was so worried!"

After a long, too long moment, she finally hands the baby back to Andromeda.

_Crack_. Before Regulus can even process what's happening, Andromeda has turned on the spot, Disapparated herself and her daughter out of the flat. Next to him, Sirius breathes a small sigh of relief, but Regulus can't bring himself to do the same.

"Well, that was rude," remarks Walburga. "No wonder. The company she keeps these days! I hope you were at least spared that fiancé of hers."

The boys remain silent throughout. She steps forward, and her eyes rake over her sons, obviously not approving of what she sees.

"Kreacher tells me there's a knife missing from the kitchen," she says, and for once she doesn't sound confident. She sounds lost. "Sirius, my boy, I would have thought it to be you."

Sirius stills, as if an apology is forthcoming, or maybe just an acknowledgment of the state he was in up until a few minutes ago, the evidence of which is still turning in a bowl of milk on the floor.

It's neither. "Don't you ever run away again," she says, her voice gentle. "I am your mother. I will always find you."

Sirius nods. Is that it, now? thinks Regulus. Is that what they are? Surviving? Is that how they'll do it?

Walburga turns towards Regulus, then. She reaches out and takes one of his numb hands in her own, squeezes his fingers, examining the bandage, like she wants to find something wrong with it. There's everything wrong with it, and she lets it go.

"Oh, Regulus, love," she says. "It is the old Black curse." She smiles at him sadly, with more understanding than Regulus has ever had directed at him, ever.

"We've extraordinary minds, and we suffer in an imperfect world," Walburga says. "Every Black feels it at some point. You are younger than most, but then -" she pauses artfully. "You are also most extraordinary."

Her eyes are on him, wide and cloud grey and so much like his own, or Sirius's, and he tries to avoid that gaze – but she's like the night sky. He'll always be drawn to her.

"I'm glad you tried it the Muggle way," she says. "That's how I know you didn't mean it."

No words are forthcoming, but Regulus finds himself nodding, too. Survival.

Sirius's arm around his shoulders squeezes him momentarily before he lets go, and for the second time that day, Regulus finds himself engulfed in an unwanted hug, this one unnameably different. Heavy perfume, and something darker, like smoke, and something sour, like family. Andromeda's had been kindness, of a sort. This one –

He still doesn't know what it is. He supposes it's love.

* * *

If Regulus had to point at any one time in his life and say this was when he and Sirius started drifting apart, he supposes it would be the summer of 1974. Not the day Sirius was Sorted into Gryffindor, not the day he himself was Sorted into Slytherin; just that hot, slow summer after his Second Year; that explosion, that choking, caustic fog. Something burned, but not for long – a book, perhaps - and the invisible thread that binds them together, shared memories, shared fates, it frays and collapses in the heat.

They call it survival. They don't look back.

They still find each other on top of the Astronomy Tower, but cloudless nights seem to become rarer and rarer, and the Dreamless Sleep Potion has Regulus sleep through many of them. When he goes, it's not how it used to be – though how it used to be, Regulus hardly remembers now – there's nothing happening except the slow spin of the stars above them, the curling smoke from Sirius's cigarettes. No words between them, not scribbled nor spoken nor read. Sirius's hands fidget like there's something missing from them, a quill perhaps, and a book, so he rolls more cigarettes, and Regulus bids an early night, climbing down, down, down to the common room under the lake, smelling like a Muggle, Sirius's tobacco and occasional hemp clinging to his robes.

They still call it survival, this silence, this nothing.

Sirius runs away in the summer of 1976, and that's survival, too. Regulus feels very little, maybe because his brother has been running since the day a hat told him he was brave enough to. If there is anything Regulus feels, it's resignation, as he straightens his back and just takes it, that corset that broke his brother, that now presses down on his chest and tightens with every beat of his heart as he goes from spare to heir. Survival.

One Saturday in November, he walks up those familiar stairs again, more out of a sense of obligation than any real need – the day has been dazzlingly beautiful, late autumn sun in a cloudless sky that dragged the temperature to barely above freezing, and they might not get another chance like this until Christmas.

The moon, of course, is high and bright in the sky – no wonder, this shortly after the full. In its harsh silvery light, he sees his brother, striking a still and forlorn pose, sitting on the wall with his legs dangling over the sheer drop, and something about that sight – Sirius, lonely, forsaken, _today_ – makes him angry in a way he can't even begin to decipher.

"Shouldn't you be sneaking out to Hogsmeade, getting drunk with your troupe of imbeciles?" says Regulus. "I thought it was a Gryffindor tradition."

There's a long stretch of _nothing_ , followed by a shrug. "Only just got out of detention," says Sirius.

Oh. _That_. "Right," says Regulus. "Snape mentioned you might be."

" _Fucking_ Snape."

It's not much of an invitation, but Regulus hoists himself up on the wall next to Sirius, swings his legs over the edge and swear-to-god Sirius holds out a hand to steady him, as if he'd tumble over without meaning to. Or worse: Meaning to.

"Easy," Sirius says needlessly.

His brother doesn't say anything else for a long while, staring off into space and the distant past. Eventually, he volunteers: "And did Snape say anything else." Except he makes it sound like he doesn't really care.

"The usual variations on how much he hates you?" says Regulus. "Why, what did you do this time?"

Again, there's no answer, just a huff from Sirius.

"What did you _do_ , Sirius?" says Regulus.

Sirius shrugs. "Nothing he didn't deserve."

Knowing Snape, there probably is a grain of truth to that statement – but Regulus is getting better at being angry with one person at a time, and right now, it's Sirius's turn.

"You know, I rather looked forward to kicking your arse in our next Quidditch match," Regulus says conversationally.

"Yeah, well, good luck with that. I'm off the team," says Sirius.

"I _know_ ," says Regulus. "You realise they made me a Prefect this year?"

There's a very long pause. Sirius takes a deep drag from his cigarette and, on the exhale, says, " _Congratulations_ ," his voice dripping with mirth.

"You realise, furthermore, that Prefects have insight into the detention records?" Regulus says.

"Oh," says Sirius. "Okay."

"Sirius," says Regulus. "You somehow landed yourself in detention until you're eighty. They threw you off the team. Plus, you're spending the night alone in the frigid cold instead of getting drunk with your mates, so, I'm asking again, out of morbid curiosity, _what did you do_?"

Sirius laughs inappropriately. "Something dumb."

The words stir up something in Regulus's memories, but really, there's so much to choose from. Still, the answering words come almost of their own accord, and they surprise even himself. "Are you asking me to clean it up?"

Sirius, too, doesn't acknowledge how strange that is, because why would Regulus help him at all?

"Unless you can convince Lupin that I'm a fundamentally good person, really," says Sirius, "you know, underneath all the –"

He waves an impatient hand as if it's clear what he means by that – pain, chaos, madness.

"Well, that's a lost cause," says Regulus.

"I know."

"Because you're not."

"Mother was right all along, wasn't she, Reg," says Sirius, giving him an odd little look. "There is no deep down. There is no underneath. Just chaos on top of chaos." Regulus can only see his profile, the way his lips close around the glowing cigarette as he takes another deep, poisoning drag.

"I'd do it again," Sirius says quickly. "What does that make me? I hurt Lupin more than I can understand, and I'd do it _again_."

"Really," says Regulus. "Because I sort of got the impression you did it to Snape."

"See, _that's_ what I'm talking about," says Sirius fervently. "That's what I have been trying to explain! But it has been pointed out to me that I might have sort of thrown Lupin under the bus."

"Yeah," says Regulus. "You do that."

Sirius laughs. Typical of him to not acknowledge an implication as big as the Knight bus. "Chaos on top of chaos," he repeats. "Do you ever think, sometimes, they might have damaged us beyond repair?"

"Speak for yourself." It comes out a little more forceful – a little more defensive – than Regulus has intended.

Sirius just smiles to himself, a small, infuriating smile that Regulus wants to wipe off his face. And since he's fed up with rhetorical questions, he decides to go for one that might have an actual answer.

"Are you gay, Sirius?"

For someone so quick to talk, Sirius takes a long time to answer. If it weren't for the involuntary flinch, the tiny hitch in his breath, he might not have heard the question altogether. Regulus watches him smoke down the rest of his pathetic rollup, get out his tobacco and roll another, and light it with a cheap-looking Muggle lighter. He contemplates repeating the question when Sirius speaks up.

"Been listening to Mother, have you?"

"She mentioned something along those lines, yes," says Regulus.

" _Mentioned_ ," says Sirius. "I commend you on your remarkably neutral choice of words. _She_ called me a degenerate. A putrid dead end in the bloodline. A pervert and a Cornish Pixie."

"A Cornish –"

"Don't ask me, I bet it made sense in her head."

"She's very flowery in her diction," says Regulus diplomatically. "Anyway, she seemed rather convinced. I think I got the marry-well-and-give-me-grandchildren speech about two years ahead of schedule."

Sirius snorts. "Anything you want to tell me?"

"God, no," says Regulus.

The truth is – quite apart from the fact he is _fifteen_ – the thought of marriage and family repulses him in a way he can't even put into words. Maybe it's just _this_ marriage, _this_ family he's been watching deteriorate – but maybe not.

He wonders if Sirius can sense this – this point-blank refusal to even think about bringing grandchildren anywhere near their parents – and, maybe worse, the deeply engrained scepticism of any sort of activity that may naturally lead to said grandchildren. It's a secret he guards well.

Which is probably why he is deflecting now. "So, are you, or what?" he says.

"Why even ask?" says Sirius. "If our infallible mother is so convinced –"

Regulus shrugs. "Mother embellishes," he says.

"Uh-huh," says Sirius, and Regulus can't help the impression that his brother is paying a lot more attention to these little snags in the conversation than he lets on – that he takes the tiniest scraps of doubt in Regulus's words and stores them away somewhere in the underused depth of his mind. Saves them for a nebulous _later_.

"If I say yes," says Sirius after another long while, "will the Junior Death Eater Division find out about it?"

"For the love of –" says Regulus. "Please don't call the entirety of Slytherin House that."

They both politely ignore the fact that Sirius could rattle off at least eight names of recent Slytherin alumni who have joined the ranks of Voldemort.

"You're supposed to be dead to me," says Regulus softly into the frigid night air. "She burned you off the tapestry and told me you were dead." He looks up. "And I do not speak ill of the dead."

Sirius snorts. "Isn't talking to me some sort of necromancy, then?"

" _However_ ," continues Regulus. "If you're concerned about people finding out, you should probably know this."

He braces himself, sends a short prayer to whichever ancestors above are still listening that Sirius will not run off with the next bit of information and get himself into an even deeper mess. "Snape says he saw you with Lupin."

He fully expects Sirius to deny this – sort of hopes for it, really. God knows Snape can be a petty little liar sometimes.

Instead, Sirius just seems to collapse slightly, all spirit drained, and with that, Regulus knows it's true, not just a figment of Snape's admittedly vivid, if acerbic imagination: Sirius and Lupin on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, Sirius backed up against a century-old tree, wrists pinned against the rough bark by Lupin, and Lupin kissing him like no-one's watching, "like one would a girl," quoth Snape, girl expert.

For a moment, there's just silence: The rush of the wind, a distant windchime, a singular creak somewhere in the ancient wooden staircase.

"Yeah, well, fat chance of that happening again," mutters Sirius.

Regulus realises he's been holding his breath. "It's true, then?" he says.

"Ironic, really," says Sirius. "Snape creeping up on Lupin all the time really kicked off this whole sordid… mess." He waves a hand in an expansive manner, encompassing the sheer scope of it: Alone. Nearly expelled. Not exactly sorry, just… defeated.

Which is why Regulus feels particularly bad about turning the knife in the wound.

"And whatever deal you've made to negotiate Snape's silence," he says, "I don't think he considers this to be part of it."

"I'd do it again," breathes Sirius. "I would so do it again. That fucking miscreant thinks he can just –"

" _This is a warning_ ," says Regulus. "Not an incentive. Subtle difference, I know." He sighs. "So please be – I don't know, what is one in these sorts of situations? Careful?"

"Extra heterosexual?" says Sirius innocently. It's weird: Regulus hasn't really expected to laugh today, or at all this week, but somehow Sirius can still draw it out of him.

"The Muggle-ladies-in-bikinis sort of extra heterosexual?" quips Regulus. "I hate to say it, but that was _transparent_."

"Are they still there?" says Sirius, perking up. "Did Mother manage to get them down?"

"No," says Regulus.

"But you could?" says Sirius.

"Naturally," says Regulus.

"You are _such_ a Slytherin," says Sirius. It sounds almost – _adoring_ , thinks Regulus, and while he feels aeons too old for that sort of thing, Regulus gives him a small smile of thanks anyway.

"Well, night's getting on," says Regulus. "And please don't take this the wrong way, but – " he checks his watch, and is surprised to find it's hours past midnight, "happy birthday."

Suddenly he wants to punch Potter and Lupin and Pettigrew, for abandoning his brother tonight. What _are_ they doing on the turn of Sirius's seventeenth birthday? He hopes they're miserable.

"Well, you know what people say," says Sirius. "Start the year on a low note, it can only get better from here. What do you think Mother's doing for the occasion of my coming of age? Ritually sacrificing a puppy?"

" _Sirius_!" says Regulus sharply, suddenly losing all patience with his wayward ex-brother.

"Or will she rant herself into a rage and take it out on Kreacher?"

Regulus remains staunchly silent, because fairly, that is a lot more likely, and he reminds himself to send Kreacher a postcard as soon as he can.

He moves to get off the wall, but Sirius lays a hand on his arm. "Just a minute," he says. For a moment, he just smokes, deep in thought. Hesitating.

" _What_?" says Regulus.

"I talked to Fleamont and Euphemia," says Sirius eventually. "You know. James's parents."

Regulus doesn't say a thing.

"They say you're welcome," says Sirius. "If you ever need to. You know. Get out."

"And then what?" says Regulus.

"Fire and brimstone. Who cares? You'll be gone." Sirius shrugs helplessly. "I'm just saying that – now that I actually did it, it doesn't feel so impossible anymore. And the stakes are higher now, aren't they?"

"They were only ever going to let go of one of us," says Regulus, deciding not to comment on that last part. "And I think we both know it was always going to be you."

It isn't supposed to come out the way it does: Accusatory – but now it's out, and Regulus can see that Sirius takes note of this, too.

"Maybe stop agonising about what they will _let_ you," says Sirius. "And start thinking of what you want."

"Really," says Regulus. "And how's that working out for you?"

He reaches out, grasps his brother by the jaw, firmly, almost rough – like their father would, he thinks bitterly, and what's worse, Sirius allows it, maybe out of that same wretched reflex – and turns his face into the moonlight, to look at it properly, that shadow he thought he'd seen previously.

Finding bruises in Sirius's face has unfortunately been a common occurrence for most of his life, so he doesn't know why this makes him so angry. One of Sirius's eyes is dark and swollen, and this sort of thing is supposed to be _over_ now, hasn't that been the entire point of this summer's ordeal?

He wants to ask about that black eye – or more precisely, he wants to ask why Sirius ever ran away, if this is what he ran _to_ , because clearly it must have been one of his friends - Regulus doubts Snape would have missed the opportunity to brag if he got one on Sirius. Likely Potter, because neither Lupin nor Pettigrew seem the type.

"It's you," he says, feeling like the worst sort of person: The sort that finds an unfortunate truth, and has to rub it in, no matter how painful. "The common denominator. It's always been you. You provoke and provoke and you don't ever _stop_ -"

He expects anger, outrage, denial – he doesn't expect a slow, thoughtful nod.

"Think, though, of how freeing it is to _take control_ ," says Sirius, "Shit happens anyway. Make it happen."

The cigarette between Sirius's lips dies down and it's one less star in the darkness. He methodically grinds down the dog-end on the wall beside him, then quickly rolls another and lights it.

"It's not a one-time offer, either," says Sirius into the night air. "We mean it. Come when you're ready." He pauses, heavily, before he adds, "And when you're ready - tell Bella to go fuck herself and _run_."

So Sirius knows, thinks Regulus. He _knows_ , and yet he doesn't explode, or lash out, or abandon him. Merely taunt him with a sweet, tempting, _impossible_ way out.

"I've got to go," says Regulus, mostly because it's the truth: He really, really has to, before this frankly insane idea has a chance to take root in his mind. "Good night." He draws his legs in and swings them over the wall, feeling like he's just lost an argument.

He's almost done crossing the observation platform when Sirius calls after him.

"Reg."

Regulus turns. His brother now sits facing him, his back to the stars, directing an alarming amount of attention at him.

" _What_ ," he says.

"Think you're all going to Blackpool again next summer?" Sirius asks.

"Blackpool?" says Regulus.

"You know, the place we all go to every summer like it's still 1912?" says Sirius. "The one that even the Muggles think is declining? Next year will be the first time without me. Bet that must be weird."

" _Blackpool_ ," says Regulus again.

"That's the one I'm talking about," says Sirius, half laughing, gesticulating with his cigarette like he would with a quill. "The one in Lancashire. Are you still going?"

"One of us is going crazy," says Regulus. "Please tell me it's you."

Sirius shrugs. "It probably is," he says fairly. "Why?"

Regulus looks at him – that tall teen in front of him, slightly battered but grinning, ever-changing and yet one of the few constants in his life – and right now, a complete alien, a fraud, a prankster? He can't figure him out.

"Sirius, we go to _Brighton_ ," says Regulus. "We've been summering in Brighton every year since we were kids."

Sirius goes very, very still.

Then he catches himself, and something like careful control settles on his expression. He eases into a long pause – a very long pause, before he says, carefully. "Brighton. Of course. Slip of the tongue."

Regulus finds himself smiling. "Old age must be catching up to you," he says. "Good night, Sirius."

He gets a smile and a wink back. "Night, Reg."

Regulus ducks into the low archway that leads to the staircase, and thinks: _Brighton. Famously situated in beautiful Lancashire._ Slip of the tongue, indeed.

One of them is definitely going crazy.

* * *

If the toxic summer of 1974 was when they started drifting apart – then what would be the day they were done? Regulus would have expected a fight, an explosion, Sirius's horrible temper, his own bottled resentment. He wouldn't have expected it to end the moment they said said Good Night on the Astronomy Tower.

He can't say who told on them, nor why. The Astronomy Tower is a popular spot for young couples who like a bit of sophisticated stargazing with their snogging. But the person he suspects of telling on them is probably number one on his list of people most unlikely to bring a girl up there - yes, still more unlikely than Sirius in spite of recent revelations – so it's probably just a touch of good old-fashioned Slytherin-style spying.

Besides, Snape has been giving him weird looks all morning.

The best that can be said about it is that it happens early on a Sunday morning, and the Great Hall is only half-filled with bleary-eyed, yawning students. Snape is there, too; a born night owl, he must be expecting some entertainment. He is still all ruffled feathers and cold-boiling hatred, dark eyes sweeping the hall curiously, his eternal air of disappointment wafting around him, or maybe he has just forgotten to bathe again. Snape's attention, as it is wont to do, keeps returning to the Gryffindor table, looking for one student in particular.

Sirius hasn't made it down to breakfast, however. But his friends are there. Lupin, tall, pale, and tired, hiding bandages under his long sleeves, keeping to himself as he dutifully obliterates a large bowl of porridge. Potter and Pettigrew, deep in conversation, throw occasional glances in Snape's direction when they think he's not looking. Regulus can't help but think the friends seem broken somehow, without his brother.

The owls swoop in. Among them is Lethe, his own owl, returning with a letter from Grimmauld Place. But this one's unusual, no creamy parchment, no careful cursive, no sealing wax. It's red, and it's starting to smoke. The owl hoots apologetically.

They've never sent him a Howler before.

Regulus stares at it dumbly, and that thing is vibrating in his hands, and his housemates are looking, curious or repulsed or attentive, he can't tell, Snape is craning his neck, the hacking order is about to change, Regulus thinks, and yet he is rooted to the spot, held down by years of not having a choice, and he knows exactly what his mother is going to yell:

That Sirius is dead to him. That there are to be no further meetings, no talking, no stargazing, no Astronomy Tower. That if he ever so much as _thinks_ of taking Sirius up on his offer, they're going to -

And Walburga does yell all that, and more, ever so much more, and still Regulus can't run, or move, until McGonagall stalks over from the teacher's table, an unusual haste in her steps and even more unusual pity in her eyes, and Vanishes the Howler with a flick of her wand. She then grips him by the shoulder to march him into a less public corridor some way off the Great Hall.

"I shall write to your mother," she tells him curtly. "We do not accept this sort of abuse here at Hogwarts."

_You have accepted this sort of abuse for five whole years_ , thinks Regulus, biting his tongue. Instead, he says: "Apologies, Professor. My mother can be quite temperamental."

He's never apologised for his mother's behaviour before, and as he does it, he realises why: Because it would quickly turn into a full-time job.

McGonagall, too, looks like she's sitting on any number of words she is for now keeping to herself.

"For what it's worth," she says, "I believe you should consider the Potters' offer."

"My parents are rather running out of sons at this rate, Professor," he says lightly. "Is that all?"

McGonagall scrutinises him for another long while. "For now, Mr Black," she says shortly, and leads the way back into the Great Hall.

Her intervention came too late and she knows it, because it is out, in Walburga's not so kind words: The secret. The thing Sirius barely admitted to the previous night, the entire life-destroying, shirt-lifting _truth_ of it. Regulus has barely been gone a minute, and the Great Hall is awash with it, full of murmurs, some laughs. Stony silence at the teacher's table, as if they could ignore this into non-existence. Stony silence at the Gryffindor table, and then Lupin pushes his chair back and limps out, staying under the radar but looking so, so tired of it all.

Snape's eyes follow Lupin all the way to the door, a wide, satisfied smirk on his face.

"Look at him," he jeers. "The boy who brought the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black to its knees." Snape still hasn't entirely adjusted to the whole disownment thing.

Regulus wonders if he should explain it again.

He is also seriously fighting an urge to punch that smirk off his face - but it won't help, will it? Even worse, he can't help but admire it, just a little, the way Snape has manoeuvred Walburga Black into helping his own petty revenge for whatever unnameable thing Sirius did to him. And oh, what a revenge that is:

Sirius has lost his friends. He has lost the protection of ignorance, now that the entire school knows he likes boys a little bit more than he should. And finally, Sirius has lost Regulus, because now that their parents know they still meet, they can't. Of course, Regulus has lost Sirius, too, but Snape doesn't care, he has never cared about anyone's misery but his own.

Snape must be quite unaware of the messy death Regulus quietly wishes upon his person, because he nudges him, indicating with a long-nailed hand towards another letter, propped against his coffee cup.

Ah, yes, Regulus thinks. His _other_ problem.

Bellatrix.

* * *

_To be continued._


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Note** : Apologies for the late update, things got really weird on my end. So basically I had this story all wrapped up with the last chapter nearly ready to post. Then, I received a number of questions – bloody good questions! – from you guys. These questions needed answers – and not in the form of rambling 3 a.m. comment threads on AO3. No, actual, polished, edited _story_. Thus, chapter 5 ¾ happened, containing crucial key scenes that _somehow_ weren't in the original draft! Writing is weird.
> 
> Then, of course, chapter 5 ¾ got way too long again, so I chopped it in half. Hope to edit the other half on Sunday.
> 
> (A note on Peter: I tried to keep him consistent with my other story _The Age of Lies_ , wherein he is very angry after The Prank. Hope this doesn't come across as too abrupt here, but it's not really the fic to dive into the psychology of Peter Pettigrew…)
> 
> Your feedback, as always, is very appreciated and a great motivator (among other things, it evidently leads to additional chapters, so…)

Eight days later, Regulus gets punched in the face.

It's not exactly how he'd expected the afternoon to go when he'd left the castle earlier, cloak buttoned tight, his hood drawn up against the relentless November rain. Exactly _why_ the Gryffindor Quidditch team are holding their Beater try-outs in the middle of a thunderstorm, one might never know. Regulus supposes it's one of James Potter's increasingly cryptic gestures – he may have shunned his best friend, but by _god_ he's not going to make it easy for anyone trying to take Sirius's place.

Meanwhile, even in his moderately sheltered spot underneath the stands, Regulus is getting soaked. Not for the first time, he regrets becoming Quidditch captain – if it weren't for that little badge, he might be spending his Monday afternoon more productively, in the library, where it's _warm_ and _dry_ and the rain doesn't go _sideways_. Unfortunately, espionage has always been part of the job description.

Regulus doesn't recognise the first four hopefuls, mere scarlet blurs against the anthracite sky. They range from poor to marginally competent, not that it helps: Gryffindor's other Beater, Kingsley Shacklebolt, is pelting them with Bludgers, while James Potter flies circles around them ("No, no, no, hit the Bludger at _me_ – not the goalposts, you _imbeciles_ – what is this, _cricket_?"). Regulus can see Potter's growing frustration in the way he's playing: He's showing off, paying no attention at all to their pathetic Bludgers, scoring goal after goal after artful goal.

The fifth to try out is Peter Pettigrew.

Regulus squints into the rain, but no, he is not mistaken: He has watched his brother's friends across the Great Hall for long enough to know their shapes, how they move, how they interact. He hadn't pegged Pettigrew as a flyer; the boy bumbles, doesn't know where his feet are half the time – but then, people change on a broom. Potter certainly does.

Pettigrew doesn't.

If Regulus is being fair, it's not a total mismatch; he'd probably place Pettigrew third or fourth out of the five. The boy certainly has the temperament for a Beater, channelling a hitherto unknown source of pure _anger_. He swings his bat at a Bludger with so much force Regulus half expects it to take out the window of Dumbledore's office – but his aim is poor, and he sends the Bludger into a wobbly gyration and himself into a murderous spin that nearly takes him off his broom.

He doesn't improve.

Potter isn't even watching him anymore, merely drawing lonely circles around the pitch, scoring trick shots without looking - except that one time when he swoops in to save Pettigrew from falling. Regulus can hear them arguing – Pettigrew doesn't seem to be quite ready to forfeit yet. Ultimately, though, a dejected Pettigrew collects his gear, and another nondescript Gryffindor takes his place.

Regulus watches for a little while longer, out of a possibly misguided sense of duty – or humour, either way works, he thinks. He wishes the Gryffindors would just hurry up and go with the least terrible option. Since the rain is now trickling down his back, he himself is quite ready to call it quits.

"And what in blazes do _you_ think you're doing here?" says a voice behind him. "Isn't it enough that you ruined it for everybody? Isn't it enough what you did to Moony? Have you come to laugh at me, too?"

Regulus only turns his head enough to make sure it's Pettigrew. He's clearly being quite deranged – no wonder, after that humiliating display - and Regulus doesn't deign to answer.

"I _knew_ there was something wrong!" says Pettigrew in his obnoxious Yorkshire accent. "I _knew_ I could have done better! You bloody snake, you fucking Slytherin - can't bear to see anyone replace you - Confunded me, haven't you?"

Regulus can't help but laugh. "Trust me, you didn't need Confunding."

In hindsight, he doesn't know what he expected.

Pettigrew grabs a fistful of his robes and slams him against the post, then draws back and _oof_.

Regulus has never been punched in the face before, and it's not an experience he's keen on repeating. He's a smidge taller than Pettigrew, but also a typical Seeker: slight, birdlike. A bully's dream. Pettigrew, on the other hand, is _broad_. Not exactly muscular, not exactly fat, just massive. He must have at least thirty pounds on Regulus, and every single one of those seems to be concentrated behind that fist. It connects with his mouth and the back of his head hits the post, barely cushioned by the thick hood of his cloak.

His silent spell sends Pettigrew sprawling in the mud before Regulus is even aware he's drawn his wand, fingers curled around it, one of Snape's nasty little custom spells lined up.

"What is _wrong_ with you?" he hisses, when he has regained his breath. His hood has fallen back.

Pettigrew stares at the wand pointed at him, obviously extremely surprised he hasn't been hexed yet, then at Regulus's face, obviously extremely surprised in general. He scrambles up, trying in vain to pat globs of mud from his robes. "Sorry," he mutters. "Thought you were someone else."

Ah. There's really only one person he could be referring to. "Aren't you supposed to be his _friends_?" Regulus inquires.

"Like that two-faced bastard was ever ours." Pettigrew snorts. "You really have no idea what he's done, have you?"

Regulus digs out a white, monogrammed, and unfortunately rain-soaked handkerchief out of his pocket, dabs gingerly at his mouth, and decides he'd rather not make a habit of catching punches for Sirius.

"If that's how you react, maybe you deserved it," suggests Regulus. "Who is Moony?"

That name has Pettigrew shut up like nothing else. _Interesting_.

"What's going on here?" says another voice, this one good-natured, with an undertone of steel. James Potter has come up behind Pettigrew.

"It's _Black_ ," spits Pettigrew. "He's come to spy on our team. Bet he wants to steal our strategy -"

Potter looks at him, part fondly, part exasperated, and no doubt objecting to the possessive pronoun. "It's just a try-out, Peter," he says. "It's not secret. Why's he bleeding?"

Pettigrew sputters.

"A mix-up, I gathered," says Regulus.

Potter gives him an appraising, but not particularly surprised look. "A mix-up," he repeats. "Well, I suppose you two do sort of look alike."

"Look, I know you're all itching to land one on Sirius," says Regulus. He folds his handkerchief and puts it back in his pocket. "But I have no desire of being your collateral damage, so I suggest you sort this the fuck out among yourselves."

"Ooh, the posh boy is swearing now," mutters Pettigrew.

"If it were that easy, Black." Potter sighs. "Look, I'm sorry for this moron. Emotions running high, and all. Do I need to take you to the hospital wing?"

"Don't be ridiculous; your friend punches like he plays," says Regulus haughtily through the ringing in his head. There's about sixty portraits between here and the hospital wing; he's not about to walk anywhere with Potter.

Potter shrugs. "Suit yourself."

"Your second try-out today looked marginally less pathetic than the rest, I suggest you make do with her," Regulus adds. "Or just let Sirius back on the team, and this year's tournament might actually be interesting."

"See, James?" says Pettigrew. "I told you, Pads is chumming up with the Slytherins now." He turns to Regulus, who raises an eyebrow.

"Pads?" he says.

This time, Pettigrew doesn't even notice. "You really are two of a kind, aren't you?" he says. "Is it true your mother didn't even need to change her last name when she married your father?"

"Peter!" says Potter sharply.

Regulus wonders if he should bring forward an argument to defend his parents' closer-than-usual relation, or just hex Pettigrew three ways to Sunday.

"At least I don't _look_ inbred, you pathetic little creep," he says. Okay, this definitely won't go down in the _Collected Aphorisms of Regulus A. Black_ , but it had to be said.

"Do you _want_ to get punched again, Black?" says Potter, before Peter can say anything. "Because this is how you get punched again. Our Peter here is a bit defensive these days."

"I'd be defensive, too, if I flew like that," says Regulus, and turns to leave, ignoring a wave of dizziness. Being punched is really not for him. Over his shoulder, he calls, "By the way, Pettigrew – twenty points off Gryffindor."

"Bit harsh, isn't it?" Potter calls back.

"Really," says Regulus. "How many did you get for punching Sirius?"

As he makes his meandering way back to the castle, he hears an exasperated Potter explain to Pettigrew how he can't just punch a Prefect in the face and expect to get away with it. Potter has been without his best friend for exactly three weeks, but Regulus could swear he's ready to crack.

* * *

Regulus must be a fair bit more concussed than he thought. He is only just past Hagrid's hut when he sees the Grim.

"Oh, come on now," he says, as much to himself as to the omen of death sitting casually in his path. "I only got whacked in the mouth. I'm not dying yet."

The dog – large, black, shaggy, and thoroughly sodden by the rain – growls, a deep rumbling sound that seems to come right from the depths of hell.

"Are you threatening me?" says Regulus. "You're a death omen, not a self-fulfilling prophecy."

All right, so that might be the concussion speaking. Regulus dearly hopes that, under ordinary circumstances, he would not try and give the Grim ideas.

Upon further reflection, he hopes he would not dismiss the obvious conclusion so readily. It's a _dog_.

"You're one of Hagrid's, aren't you?" he murmurs. "What did he do, breed a lab with a _bear_? Whatever you are, you look a bit," he searches for a word, "illegal."

Great. Talking to dogs now. Potter may not be the only one who's cracking.

The dog moves forward, wagging its tail and nudging Regulus's legs. Unfortunately, Regulus doesn't know the first thing about dogs, but he supposes it's a good sign he's still in possession of all his limbs.

The dog whines to get his attention, then sets off in the general direction of the castle. And cracking or not, Regulus is _not_ about to just follow a spectre of death to wherever it wants to take him.

Except it seems to want to take him to the Hospital Wing.

"Fine," he grumbles. "But only because I was going there anyway."

* * *

Later that evening, Regulus digs to the bottom of his trunk and gets out a square book he's neglected for years. The last and only entry is a sixty page persuasive essay on the subject of drowning, dated 27th August 1974.

Good, he thinks. Means the new entry he's about to commit will be in good company.

_11_ _th_ _November 1976_ , he writes. _Today, Pettigrew punched me in the face because, apparently, I look like Sirius. Potter didn't seem to object. Lupin's nickname is Moony. And_

Here, Regulus hesitates. May future biographers never find this thing, he thinks, and continues:

_And a rather enormous Grim made sure I went to the Hospital Wing_.

* * *

On Wednesday, the onslaught of letters from Bellatrix finally gets the better of Regulus – he feels slightly overdramatic thinking of it as an _onslaught_ , but seriously, it's only November and he has _eleven_ of these things - and he finally opens one.

Regulus isn't stupid enough to do it in the castle; instead he picks a bench a nice distance away from anything even a very desperate spy might consider cover.

He reads the letter from top to bottom and goes, _"Hm."_

Then he reads it again.

Then he gets out the diary from inside his robes and copies down a few key phrases from Bella's letter, trying not to make a face. His hands are itching to write back to Bella, telling her she might have sent this love letter to the wrong person – and anyway, _ew_ – but fortunately, as potty as he is these days, this pot still has a lid.

Unfortunately, Bella doesn't.

_\- how elating it is, to be known so intimately,_ she writes, _– He knows what ails you, knows what aggrieves and unsettles you –_

_\- even the Holy Bible foretold this: To know is to love, and to know Him, truly know Him, is to love Him unconditionally –_

_\- for He is resilient, untouched by age or life or enemies; undefeated, eternal, He will survive the earth and the sun and the stars –_

And so on and so on. Maybe he is going crazy, thinks Regulus. But in his defence, it definitely, definitely runs in the family.

* * *

On Friday night, Regulus is lying face-down on a rather expensive, very elegant, and extremely uncomfortable sofa in the Slytherin common room, waiting for the Dreamless Sleep potion to kick in and make him drowsy enough to endure his inane dorm mates. _Almost there_ , he think. _Almost_ -

A great deal of noise cuts through his quiet desperation, announcing Dorcas Meadowes, who tumbles through the portrait hole, tired or drunk or both. Regulus lifts his head minutely to take in her disarrayed state, her sweaty face.

Meadowes is a Seventh Year and ordinarily, she would ignore him. Tonight, she perches on the back-rest, staring down at Regulus with alarming fervour.

" _What_ ," he says. There have been two letters from Bellatrix today and he is getting rather tired of people disapproving of his life choices.

"Any reason in particular you're camping out in the common room?" she says. "Or were you just fancying a touch of hypothermia?"

"Crouch has found himself a girlfriend and Mulciber has a colourful imagination," Regulus tells the sofa pillow. "I am sorry to say the quality of conversation in the dorm has rather plummeted this year."

"I'm amazed there was ever a point to plummet from," says Meadowes.

Regulus shrugs lying down. "I try," he says.

"Though not right now."

It might be the artificial fatigue, the lilac fog in his head that makes him ask, "So are they true? The rumours, I mean."

"What rumours, that I've been hugging your brother?" says Meadowes. "He looked like he needed a hug."

"Twice daily, apparently," says Regulus.

"Yeah, well, luckily it's not a limited resource."

To be fair, it's not as if Meadowes has given a damn about anything, ever, since the moment the Sorting Hat was lifted from her head. That she has now unilaterally lifted the house-wide ban on friendly interactions with Gryffindors is not particularly surprising. The Slytherin rumour mill had been working overtime with that one.

On the whole, Regulus thinks, the girls of Hogwarts seem to have a better, or at least more constructive, handle on the entire situation. The first time Sirius had come down to the Great Hall for breakfast, nearly a week after the Howler incident, he'd linked arms with none other than Lily Evans, Prefect extraordinaire and object of much pining originating from a single source in Slytherin house. They'd been whispering to each other. Regulus had even seen his brother throw back his head and _laugh_.

Snape had frozen in the middle of some scathing remark or other, with a face like he'd bitten into a lemon. Over at the Gryffindor table, Potter's composure hadn't fared much better.

"I always thought Evans had some Slytherin in her," he muses out loud.

"Earth to Black," says Meadowes. "You're not drugged, are you?"

"Just tired," says Regulus.

"Your brother and I have been duelling," Meadowes informs him.

"Oh, dear," he says. Eventually, he realises that more than that is expected of him, and adds, "Why?"

"He keeps getting attacked in the corridors," says Meadowes. "As do I."

Regulus groans, but offers up no further vocalisation for now. Meadowes's stare is slowly burning a hole in the back of his head.

"How can you be on their side?" she says eventually. "Insecure brawlers. Bullies and lowlifes. I really thought you were better than that."

Regulus snorts. "He enjoys fighting," he says. "Probably letting off steam. Are you really his pretend girlfriend?"

"Are you mocking our love, Black?" says Meadowes.

Regulus should probably just not enter public spaces anymore while under the influence of Dreamless Sleep Potion, because he says, "Come on, Meadowes. You're as interested in him as he is in you."

"Perceptive, Black," says Meadowes. "If you were any sharper, you could take someone's eyes out."

"So, are you?" says Regulus.

"His pretend girlfriend?" says Meadowes. "Why're you asking? You in the market for one?"

No, thinks Regulus. He's asking because that would imply Sirius has taken someone's advice for _once_ in his life.

"What am I going to do with a pretend girlfriend?" he says.

Meadowes gives him a sly look. "What are you going to do with a real one?"

Regulus lifts his head, very, very slowly. Above him, Meadowes shrugs. "Not judging, mind," she says.

Oh, _god_. "Duelling sounds nice," Regulus says. Eventually.

* * *

So clearly, the entire situation with his brother and the so-called Marauders is idiotic, and even more clearly, Potter and Pettigrew cannot be counted on resolving it. Regulus can't say he has much more hope for Lupin, but the same obstinacy that got him through three years of Arithmancy now gets him into – and through, more or less - the most unsettling conversation he's ever participated in.

When it's finally over, Regulus stumbles out of the castle, makes it all the way to a bench on the shore of the Black Lake, casts rain-repellent charms on himself and the diary, and starts taking down notes.

Ten minutes later, the dog joins him. It's been doing that a lot lately; apparently they're friends now. Regulus is still not entirely sure he is a fan of dogs in general, or even this dog in particular. But with a dog as ridiculously big as this one, he feels it prudent not to argue.

The dog looks up at him with something akin to disapproval.

"Yes, I know the weather is shit," says Regulus. "But I really can't have anyone see…"

His improbable companion jumps up and curls up next to him, impossibly taking up three quarters of the bench. Regulus scans his notes again. No, still doesn't make any sense.

Well. Maybe if he says it out loud.

"So I talked to Lupin today," he says. "And I believe I see it now. What my brother sees, I mean. I see how the thing started, and –" he pauses, with something like sorrow, or relief, he can't say. "And I see how it must end."

At this, he laughs. "Danger. Tragedy. And riddles within riddles… Sirius didn't stand a chance."

That's what his notes are saying. _Danger. Tragedy, Riddles_. A few other words, like _Yes_. _Miracle. Mortal peril_.

Regulus locks eyes with the dog, who looks utterly, utterly relaxed. Except for its face. It's a very attentive face, Regulus thinks, for a dog. He doesn't know very many dogs.

Hell, he barely knows this one.

It's a face one _wants_ to talk to. "So I believe," Regulus continues slowly, "that, by and large, Lupin said three very important things today. And I understood maybe one of them."

Definitely attentive, he thinks. The dog has raised its head from its paws, its ears perked up.

"The first was, _yes, I am_."

Even by Regulus's standards, who stumbles over new information like others would over bumps in the road, this revelation had been a complete accident.

Like any Prefect in the history of Hogwarts who had ever wished to strike up a conversation with another Prefect, Regulus had stayed back after the Prefects' meeting and asked Lupin if they could swap patrol duty. And of all the made-up reasons Regulus could have picked, he'd said he couldn't make the twenty-ninth because he'd be gathering fluxweed under the full moon, for Potions.

Lupin had even taken out his calendar. Had pretended to scrutinise the page, before looking up to meet his eyes.

Which was when something had finally slotted into place. It's as if Regulus's brain had started some low-level computation ages ago – possibly on his first day of school, when he'd met Lupin on the train station –, had patiently added information over the years, and now proudly presented the result with the satisfaction of a job well done.

But why now?

The shock must have reflected on his face, because Lupin had merely said, _Yes, I am_.

In hindsight, it all makes sense. The recurring illnesses. The ever-changing scars. Pettigrew calling him _Moony_. Except Regulus should never have cared enough to notice any of this.

"Then he asked me who told me," Regulus tells the dog. "Sirius or Snape. I was just really surprised _they_ know. I mean, should _anyone_ know? I mean, if anyone _should_ know, than perhaps not those two -?"

The dog is very, very still now.

"He asked me if I was going to tell someone," continues Regulus. "I said I was just solving a riddle, and I hadn't actually thought that far. I mean, if he's going to maul someone, he'll probably start in Gryffindor Tower. Should give us an edge in the next Quidditch match… I think I was rambling at that point. I just really, really didn't want to be attacked – or Obliviated – or -"

Regulus realises he's rambling now – and to a dog, no less. _Focus, Black_ , he tells himself. Re-reading the notes he made, his eyes catch on the words _Mortal peril_.

"I asked Lupin whether his name was a clue, too," he says.

Lupin had merely laughed, explained to him that Werewolves were made, not born. Regulus's imagination had supplied the rest.

He hadn't _wanted_ to ask. It had just sort of come out.

_I was four_ , Lupin had said.

_Four,_ Regulus had repeated, whose state of mind by then had been oscillating wildly between scandalised, terrorised, offended, and just plain ill. _How did you even survive?_

_Mortal peril_ , says Lupin. _It's how my accidental magic manifested_.

"But that wasn't the only thing he said," Regulus tells the dog. "He said, _you should know this, isn't that how they test it in your nobby circles_?"

Regulus sighs. Deeply. Underlines the words "Mortal peril" three more times in his diary. "That is _barbaric_ ," he tells the dog. "It is untrue, offensive, and just plain ridiculous." He studies the diary again, as if an answer may just rise up from its pages. "But why," he adds slowly, "does it seem so bloody _important_ –"

Rain-repellent charm or now, the fingers of his writing hand are freezing now. Regulus tentatively reaches out for the dog – he is still not a hundred per cent convinced it's not going to bite his hand off – then runs his hand through the thick, wiry fur on the back of its neck. The dog is wonderfully warm underneath his fingers.

"Lupin said a third thing, and possibly a fourth," he says.

Because Werewolves and mortal peril and all that had really only been a detour. The third word in Regulus's diary is _Miracle_ , and that's it. That's when things got truly disturbing.

"I asked Lupin what it would take for him to talk to Sirius again. He said, an apology. A real one," Regulus tells the dog. "He asked what it would take me."

He scrutinises the diary again. There it is. That's the word he used. "I said, it'd take a miracle."

Regulus leans back on the park bench and breathes out, a long, slow, defeated exhale. A miracle. Of course. Nothing less than extraordinary for the Black brothers.

_We've extraordinary minds, and we suffer in an imperfect world_ , his mother had said, once. But _why_? he thinks. Why must suffering be inevitable?

The dog nudges him, whining softly, and Regulus scratches it behind the ears.

"That was it," he says. "Well. That should have been it. Lupin left. I _should_ have left, but I just kept standing there, pondering the inevitability of human suffering, and then –"

Lupin had come back.

_Incidentally, Regulus, I was wondering,_ he had said _, what ever happened to the ghost?_

_What ghost?_ Regulus had replied.

_The one on the train_ , Lupin had said patiently. _In your first year. The ghost Sirius brought with him. A young one, a child. Surely you remember?_

"It was clearly nonsense, and it confused me greatly," Regulus tells the dog. "But the odd thing is – the odd thing is, I _know_ this confusion. Like I've been wondering the same thing all this time…"

Still. The word _refuses_ him. Regulus can't even tell the dog. He's tried noting it down three times, but something in his addled brain keeps moving his fingers. That's why all these other words. _Yes. Mortal peril. Miracle_.

Placeholders, all of them.

A stroke of inspiration makes him switch hands. With his left, he scrawls the letters across the page – it's the opposite of calligraphy, every turn, every loop is utterly deliberate. It looks like a young child writing his name for the first time.

g  H  o  S  t

Regulus breathes out. He is, on some level, aware that the dog has sprung off the bench and is barking madly, but -

_What is the meaning of this?_ Regulus had asked. The question hadn't even been directed at anyone in particular, but then again, Lupin had been the only one there.

_A secret for a secret,_ Lupin had said. _A miracle, if you can wing it. Good luck._

But the same brain that made him nearly unable to write that word now tries to keep him from reading it. The parchment blurs in front of his eyes, the word swims and drowns and vanishes -

g  H  o  S  -

The dog paws the diary from his hands, and it hits the wet grass with a thump. Regulus snaps out of this near-immersion, this whatever-it-was, and stares at the dog with horror as it barks, barks, barks.

" _What_ _are you_?" says Regulus. "Are you listening to me? Are you – did you just _read_ -" The oddest feeling fills him head to toe, parts guilt, parts terror, part free fall from an unexpected cliff.

"Did my parents send you?" he says.

The dog yelps. Is that an admission of guilt? Regulus wonders, or are dogs just really random? Is it a sign that he's going crazy, that he's even asking himself these things?

Then the dog nudges Regulus's leg – a gesture that, under any other circumstances, would have been reassuring – and trots off.

Regulus is left standing there on the shore, grey skies above, grey water in front of him. He wonders what Mother will take away this time. He wonders if there is anything left he cares about. After a long, long while, he picks up his diary from the wet grass, heads back to the castle, and quietly awaits the next Howler.

But there must be some mercy left in the universe, because it never comes.

* * *

A week passes before he dares to take out his diary again. And of course, it falls open on his cousin Bellatrix's ramblings.

_\- to know Him, truly know Him, is to love Him unconditionally –_

The moment shouldn't even register as significant. But even now, as he re-reads these words, Regulus feels something shift inside him, something small that will nevertheless topple mountains, if he lets it. A tiny snag, some small confusion.

It's Bella's letters. They don't make sense.

Never, in his entire life, has Regulus seen Bella focus on _anything_ for longer than a week at a time. Except _this_ , this obsession, this affair – it has been going on for _years_ , since the summer before Regulus's Sorting. It's even more mysterious because this Dark Lord, this so-called Voldemort is such a non-entity, missing from genealogies and tapestries and even the most liberal of family reunions.

Maybe Bella's letters are like Lupin's scars, he thinks, staring down at his diary, maybe they'll make perfect sense in hindsight; maybe something will happen that makes him question how he could ever have been so blind. Maybe there'll be a defining moment, as with Lupin, a last puzzle part sliding into place, and it'll feel like an epiphany.

He remembers, inappropriately, something Sirius has said: _Shit happens anyway. Make it happen._

Make it happen.

Werewolves are made, not born. Well then. Epiphanies are made, not had. Regulus starts by analysing Bella's letters, making notes in the margins.

_\- to know Him, truly know Him, is to love Him unconditionally –_ (Mind control? Charisma? … Bible?)

– _He knows what ails you, knows what aggrieves and unsettles you_ – (Empathy? Legilimency?)

_\- He will survive the earth and the sun and the stars_ – (Immortality? Or Bella being Bella?)

_\- untouched by age or life or enemies –_ (definitely Immortality. How?)

Hm.

_To know is to love, and to know Him, truly know Him, is to love Him unconditionally –_

Here is what Regulus knows about his cousin Bellatrix: She first showed accidental magic when she crucified a dog to the ceiling at age five. She starved to death three of her owls in her first term at Hogwarts. She was engaged to Rabastan and Rodolphus at the same time, something Rabastan didn't find out until the wedding. She laughed and laughed, that one time Regulus nearly drowned –

Wait.

It's a flash, that little memory, and like a flash it blinds him, erases itself, and leaves Regulus stumbling. _Focus, Black_ , he thinks. How could someone like Bella love _anyone_ , let alone unconditionally?

What does this man, this Dark Lord, have that makes her persist? Is it mind control, charisma? Is it promises of glory? Is it immortality?

_I am going to know you_ , he thinks. _You're a riddle. I am going to solve you._

Maybe then Regulus will figure out what on earth they want _him_ for.

* * *

_To be continued_.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Note 1:** Thank you all for your wonderful feedback! Here, as promised, part B of the unexpected chapter (make sure you're read part A, posted yesterday!). Try not to shake Regulus too hard by the end of this. He really tries.
> 
>  **Note 2:** The articles quoted in this chapter are of course entirely made up; I only borrowed the names of the newspapers.
> 
> As always, I really look forward to reading what you think :)
> 
>  **Warnings:** Scars, past suicide attempt, death by drowning, weird unprocessed grief. But then, you did read all the way here, so…

The week before Christmas, Regulus enters the Deputy Headmistress's office to put his name on the list of students staying over the break. McGonagall is grading essays, a stack of parchment to her left, a second stack of parchment to her right. The latter is liberally decorated in red ink. She acknowledges him with a curt nod.

He signs his name slowly, middle name and all, trying not to be too obvious about scanning the rest of the list. Several other names catch his attention, among them _all five_ of his roommates – Merlin, so much for a bit of peace and quiet over the break. But further up, the very first entry is –

 _Sirius Black_.

Regulus hesitates. Maybe he _should_ go home this year. It'll be the first Christmas break without Sirius, so _quiet_ is almost guaranteed even if _peace_ isn't – but privacy-wise, Hogwarts is definitely the lesser evil. Ah, well, it's a big castle. He can always avoid his brother.

The faint sounds of essay grading have ceased a while ago, and when Regulus finally picks up on that, he looks up from the list to find McGonagall watching him.

"Have a biscuit, Black," she says.

"Pardon?" In his defence, this is not how their interactions usually go.

McGonagall points at a tartan tin on her desk. "Biscuit," she says. "It's nearly Christmas, Mr Black. Work with me here."

Regulus obediently reaches into the tin, fishes out one of the crumbly ginger nuts in there, and pops it into his mouth. The biscuit is surprisingly dusty, and he starts coughing.

"Oh dear me," says McGonagall, who is observing him like a hawk. "Here, have a cup of tea."

There's a tea set on a nearby table, and a wave of McGonagall's wand has the teapot pouring steaming tea into two cups. She doesn't ask. Milk, no sugar, apparently that's how he takes his tea now.

Regulus, still coughing, is forced by the rules of politeness to sit down in a straight-backed armchair, blowing on his cup of too-hot tea and wondering what in the name of sanity just happened.

"Mr Black," says McGonagall. "Is there anything you would like to talk about?"

"No, thank you, Professor," he says politely. "Why?"

McGonagall nods at the list on her desk. "I can't help but noticing," she says, "that you've signed up to stay at Hogwarts for the third Christmas in a row. Is Professor Slughorn still not happy with your Potions work?"

"I told him I fancied becoming a Healer," says Regulus, wishing he'd have made this lie McGonagall-proof. Alas.

"I see," says McGonagall. "I must say I'm surprised. The men in your family do not usually commit themselves to learning a profession, do they?"

Translation: They usually spend their time managing their considerable riches, meddling with politics, and amassing ill-advised collections of Dark Artefacts.

"Professor," says Regulus, flicking on a pleasant smile, "I wouldn't have pegged you a socialist."

She smiles back, but thinly. "Some circumstances just bring it out in me."

After taking a dignified sip of her tea, she adds, "Fairly noticeable bird, bringing you letters every Friday. What is it, a carrion crow?"

Regulus lets his face settle into a mask of friendly indifference before he answers. "A rook," he says. "The beak is different, and the colour isn't quite the same shade of black."

"Yes, I remember seeing that bird a lot when your cousin Bellatrix was still a student here," says McGonagall with all the subtlety of a Bludger to the face.

"Do you," says Regulus. He neglects to tell her that Nyx, the rook, is on its seventh incarnation. Bella keeps killing them.

McGonagall sighs at his deliberate obtuseness, or maybe just at the world in general. "Mr Black, the purpose of this conversation is not to discuss the taxonomy of the _Corvidae_ family," she says. "We know some of our students have been… approached."

Regulus takes another polite sip of his tea. "Approached by whom, Professor?"

"An obscure political fraction seeking blood purity and the repeal of the International Statute of Secrecy," says McGonagall. "They are thought to be responsible for more than forty deaths in the last six years."

"That is terrible," says Regulus, going as blank as he dares.

"We also know," adds McGonagall, "that some of these students have been threatened with harm to themselves or their families, should they refuse to swear their allegiance – or should they seek help."

"How _do_ you know that, then, Professor?" says Regulus.

She ignores him. "The political fraction in question calls itself the Death Eaters."

Regulus gives it a fraction of a second before he replies. "You have got to be joking."

"I wish," says McGonagall. She takes off her square glasses to give him a stare that is, impossibly, even more piercing. "Our headmaster," she says, "has always prided himself on the fact that help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it."

Regulus allows himself to lift one eyebrow. Just one. This moment is worth the countless hours he has spent in front of a mirror to perfect the move. "Really?" he says.

"But you have to ask for it, Mr Black," says McGonagall.

Frankly, it seems like a technicality to Regulus, but what does he know. "Bella is my cousin," he reminds her. "She writes to me regarding matters of the family."

"You don't have to ask right now," says McGonagall. "But you'll have to ask before you set things in motion _you will regret_."

There's a tense sort of silence between them now. Regulus somehow manages to drain his tea, which is still rather on the wrong side of scalding. He doesn't know even what he's going to say until he opens his mouth to speak –

And that's when James Potter barges into the office. "Morning, Professor," he says, and Regulus breathes a sigh of relief.

"Potter, you will get out, wait for ten minutes, and then you will _knock_ ," says McGonagall. "I am busy."

"Actually, I was just about to leave," says Regulus.

"Ah, young Regulus Betelgeuse," says Potter. "Don't panic, Professor, this'll only take a sec." He snatches the sign-up sheet and deftly strikes out Sirius's name from the list of students staying at Hogwarts over Christmas.

"Made up, have we?" says McGonagall. "Oh, well. I commend you for your magnanimity, though I shall miss the peace and quiet in Gryffindor Tower."

"Oh, he doesn't know yet," says Potter. "But my parents will kill me if I don't bring him home for his first real Christmas."

"Oh, have some tact, Potter," snaps McGonagall.

"What?" says Potter. "I told _him_ he could come, too! Ages ago!"

They're clearly talking about Regulus. He neglects to inform Potter that he has roughly ninety-nine problems, exactly none of which will be solved by spending Christmas with his ex-brother and the estranged best friend of said ex-brother.

Regulus rises from his armchair. "May I be excused, Professor?" he says.

"Mr Black," says McGonagall. "I will expect you this time next week to discuss your Transfiguration marks."

How on earth did he deserve that one? Regulus wonders. "Why, Professor?" he says. "What's wrong with them?"

She shrugs. "Nothing much. They're just not quite what I would expect for someone striving to become a Healer."

"Ah," he says. Really, he has to become a whole lot better at lying.

McGonagall gives him a thin smile. "Dismissed, Mr Black."

As Regulus slips past Potter through the door, feeling thoroughly exhausted, he hears McGonagall heave a deep sigh and say, " _Have a biscuit, Potter_."

* * *

Over the Christmas break, the status of Regulus's diary shifts from _somewhat incriminating_ to _actual liability_.

By Boxing Day, Regulus is confident he could probably write the unofficial biography of the Dark Lord. He even has a name picked out: _Wolf in Wolf's Clothing_. Or _Career in the Shadows._

Or maybe _I Am Lord Voldemort_. The anagram in particular tickles him. It's just so unexpectedly… nerdy? As if it had been picked by a teen.

Only yesterday Regulus had seen the _name_ for the first time, on a corroded medal in the trophy room. _Tom Marvolo Riddle_. Right time frame, right house, and, even better, all the other Slytherins from that era can be accounted for (after all, Regulus is related to roughly ninety per cent of them). When he'd written the name into his diary, the anagram had become obvious almost instantly, as if the letters had re-arranged themselves in front of his eyes. He wonders what the Dark Lord would have to say about it today. He wonders if anyone ever dared ask.

No, Regulus definitely can't leave that diary lying around anymore.

Still, it's a surprisingly _short_ biography for a man who is about to turn fifty less than a week from now. Regulus has gone through the Hogwarts Library's archive of old _Daily Prophet_ issues, armed with keyword spells and the sort of patience one learns in O.W.L. level Ancient Runes. (He's queried _The Quibbler_ and _Witch Weekly_ , too, and can say with confidence that the Dark Lord has never been accused of a secret identity as a rock star, nor has he won the Most Charming Smile Award.) The Dark Lord's rise is marked by disappearances, unexplained deaths, _explained_ deaths –and always, the unwavering devotion of his followers.

There is something about him, however, that journalists do not seem to get a handle on – they don't draw connections, there's no order, no structure. Between their articles and Bella's letters, Regulus has two dozen puzzle pieces, scattered across thirty years.

That's not even one a year. So where's that Slytherin ambition that Bella praises in her letters?

A growl in his stomach reminds him that he's nearly forgotten about breakfast again. Walking down the corridor to the Great Hall, he tries to look like he's not running mental loops around the inexorable rise of the most inventive Dark Wizard since Grindelwald. Deputy Headmistress McGonagall seems to have a sixth sense for that sort of thing.

Breakfast turns out to be leftovers from the Christmas feast, and he snatches a piece of fruitcake and a cup of coffee, intending to hurry so he can get back to his research, when –

 _Kaah_.

That damn rook again. Under the not quite hidden attention of McGonagall, Regulus takes the letter from Nyx, feeds her the rawest bit of meat he can find in a hurry – a slightly undercooked piece of sausage - and then leans back, unrolling the parchment like a man who doesn't have anything to hide.

Two pages in, Regulus can't help but whistle through his teeth. "Inventive," he says.

"Anything interesting?" says Snape, who has stayed back for reasons unknown, his nose buried in what is clearly a N.E.W.T. level Defence textbook.

"My dear cousin _really_ doesn't like Muggles," says Regulus under his breath. It's possibly the first time in his life he misses the usual hustle and bustle of the Great Hall during term.

Snape laughs. "Who does?"

"It's probably illegal to hate them this much," murmurs Regulus. He's just had another idea.

Because who else doesn't like Muggles?

The Dark Lord.

And who else also has newspapers?

Muggles. (Regulus is fairly sure about this one.)

So, he reasons, if the two have ever clashed…

He stuffs the rest of the fruitcake in his mouth, not exactly in line with his Ancient and Noble table manners, washes it down with black coffee, and rushes to the library.

The Hogwarts Library doesn't have its own Muggle newspaper archive, but it mirrors the one at the British Library, which is just as good. The sheer _volume_ is somewhat off-putting – why do Muggles need so many different periodicals? he wonders – but be it intuition or sheer dumb luck, it doesn't even take Regulus until lunch to get somewhere.

 _The Times_ and _The Guardian_ do not yield anything.

The _Daily Mail_ , in 1971, published a somewhat sensationalist list of the _14 Most Chilling Unsolved Murders of the 20_ _th_ _Century_. Sensing instinctively that this is the sort of list the Dark Lord's pastimes tend to turn up in, Regulus follows up on all fourteen in local newspapers.

It's number twelve that draws him in, or rather, the accompanying photograph: A grey sea lapping at a bleak, empty beach, frozen still in time. That landscape feels utterly familiar; he could have sworn it was Brighton, but no. He even doublechecks. _No. 12: The Mystery of Blackpool Beach_ , says the Daily Mail.

The same photograph is printed in the _Blackpool Gazette_ , in its 1st July 1966 issue. Additionally, it has the following to say on the matter:

_A child has been found dead on Blackpool beach Saturday morning, say police. The boy, presumably aged seven to nine, is thought to have drowned. He has not yet been reported missing. Lancashire Police are asking the public to come forward with any information that may lead to the identification of the child or his parents. The boy is described as dark-haired, fair-skinned, and wearing expensive, foreign clothes._

And, a few weeks later:

 _In the case of the drowned boy whose body was washed up on Blackpool beach on the 27_ _th_ _, police are investigating several lines of enquiry after numerous tips from the public. Weeks after his mysterious death, the boy has still not been reported missing. An autopsy has confirmed the cause of death as drowning, yielding no evidence of a crime, "which does not mean a crime has not been committed," say police. Meanwhile, the case has sparked a widespread response among locals and tourists alike. Around sixty people attended the child's burial at Layton Cemetery, and many more left flowers and letters at the grave. "It's just a tragedy," says Edith Hawthorne, aged sixty-four, of North Shore. "Where are the parents? That's what I want to know."_

Regulus copies down both articles in his diary. It's almost certainly a dead end, he thinks. Drowning? Not the Dark Lord's style. Clearly a Muggle death in a Muggle town.

But the words look different in his careful cursive, alien and familiar both. Like there's a second story hidden underneath the first, very nearly shining through.

It's a peculiar feeling: Like he's cheating. Like he found a shortcut home, through the crazy neighbour's garden. He underlines some of the words:

 _\- found dead on_ _Blackpool_ _beach -_

 _\- thought to have_ _drowned_ _. He -_

 _\- reported_ _missing_ _. Lancashire Police are -_

_\- "_ _Where are the parents_ _? That's what I –_

Since he's already in the Muggle part of the library, he goes and looks up "police".

Then he goes and looks up "autopsy".

After that, he needs a lie-down.

* * *

In the weeks to follow, the research doesn't ever truly let go of him. Regulus wonders if he can interview the Dark Lord without selling his soul first. He wonders if he can get Bella to write even more letters. His collection of newspaper cut-outs tops even Mulciber's creepy obsession with the Holyhead Harpies. When Regulus showers in the morning, he thinks of a dead family in York, and ponders whether Muggles would confuse Avada Kedavra for carbon monoxide poisoning. When he buttons his robes, he speculates whether a collapsed chalk cliff near Dover implies Dark Magic or just erosion. When he sits in Ancient Runes, he writes little notes to himself, wondering whether an unsolved murder in Bournemouth in early 1959 and an attack in Southampton two months later could possibly be related.

Right now, Regulus is running, taking the long way around the Black Lake, because if he does any more sitting around in the library, he can probably kiss his Quidditch captaincy goodbye. Today, he finds his brain vaguely stuck on the whole immortality thing again – it's impossible, he tells himself as he turns off the trail towards the rockier bits on the lake's north shore, it's impossible and someone as brilliant as the Dark Lord is wasting his time on the impossible, it doesn't make _sense_ -

It's like once he's started, he can't stop. The information has taken root in his brain, shuffling and rearranging itself. Every time he opens his diary, he notices something else, a connection, an inky thread between incidents. He would probably dream of it, too – would dream of glowing Dark Marks over ruined cottages, of bodies with their eyes wide open, of a dark-haired child washed up on the beach of Blackpool. But the Dreamless Sleep Potion takes care of that.

Regulus wishes there were _someone_ to bounce ideas off, because he is still not entirely convinced he's not going crazy. The Grim had been a pretty good listener, considering, but the dog hasn't turned up since the day Regulus called him a spy – which probably proves that point. Still, he thinks. Someone to listen. Someone to _understand_ –

"Not you, though," he mutters under his breath, when his pursuer finally catches up with him.

James Potter is still not particularly graceful when he's not airborne. He runs like a young deer: Half his energy goes into the bounce. Regulus acknowledges him with a nod.

"Morning, Betelgeuse," says Potter.

Isn't there some sort of unwritten rule that one does not talk to fellow runners on the wrong side of seven a.m.?

Or, in fact, run alongside them at all? Potter must have missed it.

As it turns out, his new-found running buddy doesn't even have the questionable subtlety of one Deputy Headmistress McGonagall. "Been talking to your brother lately?"

Regulus rolls his eyes and speeds up. But as dorky as Potter looks, he is fairly fit – barely breathing heavier despite the considerable incline. He keeps pace easily.

"I don't think you understand how this disownment thing works," Regulus says.

"I just wondered." Potter manages to shrug while jumping easily from rock to rock. "You seem to be on a subtle crusade to get the rest of us to talk to him."

There's really nothing Regulus can say to this except, " _What_."

"You suggested to me and Peter that we, and I quote, _sort this the fuck out among ourselves_ ," says Potter. At least he's out of breath now, and his words come in short bursts. "You asked Remus what it would take for him to talk to Sirius again. By your standards, that's _effort_."

Ah. So Lupin told him about that little encounter.

"Reminds me," says Regulus. "Did Sirius apologise to Lupin?"

"It's a complicated thing to apologise for," says Potter. "But he made a start." They're almost at the top of the rocky incline when he adds, "The thing is, he's not exactly talking to us, either. I usually turn around here."

Potter comes to a stop, and despite himself, Regulus stops with him. He surveys the steep, cragged descent in front of them, more cliff than trail if one doesn't know where one puts one's feet.

"But that's the best part," says Regulus.

"If you want to twist your ankle, maybe," says Potter.

Regulus shrugs. "Some Gryffindor," he mutters, and sets off.

To Potter's credit, he comes straight after him, matching his speed, even though he hasn't spent a hundred runs mapping out every rock, nook, and cranny. Some Gryffindor, indeed.

Potter even attempts to continue the conversation. "I mean, it's not this whole dramatic 'not talking' thing anymore," he says, punctuated by hasty breaths. "He's just so insanely busy. Library and schoolwork and who knows what research, and of course, he's up to his neck in detention, and –"

"What do you _want_ , Potter?" snaps Regulus. Listening to Potter really saps the fun out of this whole free-fall tumble. He'd been looking forward to this bit for the last three miles.

"I want to ask you something," says Potter. "I'm not sure there's anyone else who'd know the answer."

They're on flat ground again, but it's rougher here, the trail not as meticulously maintained as on the other side.

"Let me guess," says Regulus. "I'm going to be offended somehow."

"Like that's new," says Potter.

Then he pauses.

Then he says something that makes Regulus come to a dead halt.

"Say that again," says Regulus.

"Sirius got a tattoo over Christmas," says Potter.

 _No_ , thinks Regulus. _No, this can't be. Absolutely not_.

"What," he says.

"On his arm."

Regulus feels a lot more out of breath than he should rightfully be when he asks, "Where – whereabouts on his arm –"

It probably says a lot about the way Potter sees the world that he doesn't even attempt to use his words, instead grabs Regulus's left arm – and Regulus just allows it, immobilised by what is not quite nausea, just a general feeling of _Oh god no._

Potter turns over his arm and points a calloused finger at the inside of Regulus's wrist.

Well. That gets awkward quickly. Potter actually jumps back when he realises what he's done.

"It's not contagious," says Regulus, pulling back his arm and with it the evidence of a night that cut his life in halves. Foggy, forgettable first half, comparatively coherent second. Except for the whole going crazy bit.

"Oh, god, I'm so sorry," says Potter. "Didn't think that one through."

But Potter is not surprised. _Why_ is he not surprised? "Did Sirius tell you?" says Regulus.

"He told me about the Black family curse," says Potter. "I didn't know that meant _you_. Why didn't you get rid of them?"

How Evans hasn't fed him to the Giant Squid yet, Regulus may never know. He refrains from offering his opinion on what body part Potter could stand to get rid of, and says, "Because Scar-Ex Potion tastes like athlete's foot." Someone like Potter is clearly not going to understand the sort of life that requires frequent, visible _reminders_.

Speaking of which. "Can we discuss Sirius's tattoo now?" says Regulus. "What is it?"

Because if it happens to be a skull and serpent, he has about four pounds of newspaper cut-outs to set on fire. Preferably on Sirius's _bed_.

"It's barely anything," says Potter. "It's just three dots and he refused to explain."

"So obviously you thought it was some Dark Magic thing and went to bother me about it," says Regulus. "Or a cult thing. Or a trademark Black insanity thing. Thanks, I guess."

Despite the sarcasm, he feels as if his free fall has been slowed considerably by an unexpected parachute. _Three dots_ , he thinks. _No way that means anything_.

"Well, he is going through a hard time," says Potter. "An entirely self-inflicted hard time, but there you go."

Regulus sighs, picks up a stick, and hands it to Potter. "Draw them," he says, and is met with confusion, so he clarifies, "in the sand."

"I told you, it's just three –"

"Draw them."

Potter takes the stick with a dubious expression, but he does poke three dots into the wet sand. "There you go," he says. "I'm no Picasso, but –"

Regulus stares. Then he laughs. "Seriously, Potter? You thought this was Dark Magic?"

"Or trademark Black insanity," says Potter. "Still haven't ruled it out."

"Do you know him at all?" says Regulus. "It's a constellation, moron."

Potter stares at the sand. Then his eyes go wide. "Oh," he says.

"The Summer Triangle," says Regulus, pointing at the acute triangle laid out in front of them. Deneb, Vega, and –"

Damn it. Gone again.

"Altair," supplies Potter.

"Yeah, that one."

"…Why?"

"Beats me," says Regulus. "Maybe he started out with _Canis Major_ and then realised tattoos are painful."

Potter actually laughs. Which is when Regulus realises he is shaking.

No wonder, he thinks. They've been standing here for entirely too long on this frigid morning in March. A sharp wind has come up, and his sweaty shirt is sticking to his skin.

"Should be getting on," he says. "Tell you what, I'll give you a head start."

"Why?" says Potter.

"Because you'll need it, Potter," says Regulus.

Potter shrugs and says, "All right, Black. Thanks." He sets off, his capability of holding polite conversations with Slytherins obviously depleted.

Regulus waits until Potter is well on his way. Then he gets his shrunken diary out of a pocket – he is not letting that thing out of sight, ever, again –, opens a fresh page, and draws three dots, an acute triangle: Deneb, Vega, and the third.

* * *

The time has come for some field research. After much deliberation, Regulus decides to start with the most recent of the _14 Most Chilling Unsolved Murders of the 20_ _th_ _Century_. Most Dark Magic decays over time – probably for the better, or the world would be full of curses – and he wants, _needs_ to find something. Something that proves that he is not crazy yet. Thus, on the first of April, 1977, Regulus gets special permission from Professor Slughorn to see his elderly, ailing, and thoroughly non-existent Great Uncle Betelgeuse in Lancashire.

 _No. 12: The Mystery of Blackpool Beach_ , he thinks _. Here goes nothing._

Regulus Floos into the Holloway Inn, a tiny wizarding place just off Watson Road. He steps out to find – not at all what he expected. For some reason – maybe the long, damp Scottish winter - he'd pictured a languid, bright summer day, the air wavering with heat and full of smells – chips, fried fish, algae, salt. Instead, Blackpool is barely recuperating from the last winter, full of potholes and sharp winds.

But what chills him most is the _familiarity_ of the place, every corner he turns, layers and layers of déjà vu, broken up sharply by the occasional new building. It reminds him of Brighton, in a way Brighton never did.

When he reaches the shore, Regulus draws up his hood against the icy wind, the spray of the sea. He walks the length of the beach, south to north. The tide is at its lowest point, the sand bare and exposed.

But something is not quite right. The Muggle map he borrowed from the innkeeper must be old, he thinks – very old. It certainly _looks_ old. Certainly not older, however, than any of the four piers he passes, only three of which are on the map: South Pier, Central Pier, North Pier.

Odd.

The fourth pier is different. The haunting familiarity of Blackpool seems to be concentrated here, between Central and North Pier – but still, Regulus can hardly look at it. His attention keeps getting caught up in meaningless details – the foam on the waves, the sand that collects in his boots, the icy wind that keeps blowing off his hood.

It's easier when he fixates on the sea instead, keeping the pier just in the corner of his eye. Now he notes Victorian metalwork, exposed in the low tide. Well-kept, but ancient wooden planks. No railings.

So the pier may be rather unremarkable – quite literally, even - but Regulus is not going to gloss over the fact there's an unmapped pier right by the site the child was found, washed ashore nearly eleven years ago, at the height of the tourist season.

Is this the Dark Lord's doing? he wonders. Hiding an entire pier in plain sight? … To make sure he'd find the place later? From what Regulus has cobbled together, it doesn't seem quite his style. The Dark Lord enjoys attention – for his work, if not his person - he scares and bullies and awes.

Or maybe that's what Regulus believes because it's exactly what he would notice. If the Dark Lord starts _hiding_ things – well, that can't be good news, Regulus thinks.

Or maybe it's a coincidence and this is just some wizarding family's private pier – but very few families have the sort of old money that would get them the permits necessary to hide something _this_ big in a Muggle neighbourhood. Off the top of his hat, Regulus can think of three, maybe four. The Malfoys, the Shafiqs, the Lestranges. The Blacks, obviously.

He gets out his diary. Grabbing the self-inking quill inelegantly between icy fingers – once again, it's _not_ a day for calligraphy – he notes down these thoughts.

When he looks up, it's to the strongest _déjà vu_ yet – wet sand beneath his feet, an empty sky above, and a steel-grey hungry sea in front. The incoming tide has started lapping away at his footprints, the beach again a blank, malleable slate - and for a moment, there's only this terrible _now_ , no past, no future. That one night on the roof of Grimmauld Place.

He flees the beach, then, and lets his feet carry him to Layton Cemetery. By the time he gets there, he wishes he'd taken Muggle Studies, just so he'd know how to take a bus.

Layton Cemetery looks like another dead end. The place seems entirely too Muggle for someone like the Dark Lord – witches and wizards prefer burials under trees, or in the cool depths of a mausoleum, or at sea. Not in neat little rows on a flat wide piece of land, surrounded by terraced houses and noisy Muggle traffic.

But if the Dark Lord were to murder a child, would he care where it was buried?

It takes him a while to find the anonymous grave. The headstone is simple, likely paid for by the council, or donations. The inscription reads _Sweet Dreams, Dear Child_ in loopy cursive, together with the day the body was found: 27th June 1966, almost eleven years ago. He'd almost certainly be of age now. Regulus tries to imagine him, from the sparse descriptors in one of the articles: Short for his age, skinny, dark-haired and bright-eyed – but if he couldn't imagine him as a child, than imagining him as an adult is impossible.

There's no way Regulus can get away with using magic, not here, in the middle of off-season Blackpool. He looks around him, but other than an elderly lady in the distance, he's alone, so he sprinkles a handful of powdered unicorn horn over the grave. If there are any remnants of Dark Magic, the particles should be repelled.

They are not. Instead, they settle, glittering in the air as they sink down, down, unheeded by the April winds, drawn to the grave as if they could diffuse through it, to the remains beneath. ( _Dust_ , thinks Regulus, suddenly nauseous. _Earth, ashes, dust_. If only. A frame of bones, a suit of skin, hands that perhaps played the piano, a mouth that laughed and told stories, eyes that once gazed at the stars. All gone.)

Is it a trick? Regulus can't believe it. He sinks down on his knees, yielding to a sudden desire to _touch_ , to reach through – his hand on the granite, he recalls how Dark Magic feels, it's in every corner of Grimmauld Place – but there's none of that here.

No magic, that is. None at all. Not even the simple magic of trees, or rocks by the seaside. Not even the misunderstood magic of Muggles, that they wield and form into things they call inspiration, genius, love – it's like this here, this grave, is a black hole in the fabric of magic; the one place in Blackpool and maybe the entire world where it is completely absent.

But there is darkness. No magic, then, just darkness. It flashes like a bad memory: Something slipping, resigned, defeated, tingling under his fingertips, at the base of his skull, not unlike the time he touched the Holloway rod: Fear, no, panic, smothered in heavy waves, laid to uneasy rest.

He knows that feeling intimately: Drowning.

No, worse, he thinks. Drowned.

But _how_ , he thinks, trying to tell himself this is just another Potions assignment. Gather the data. Find the connections. Infer, resolve, conclude. _How_ could he find something so familiar, in a town he's never been to? Why is it calling to _him_?

There's an answer here, he knows, somewhere just beneath the headstone, where he can't go. It feels maddeningly close, as close as if it were in his own head, like an answer just on the tip of his tongue – but it's not coming to him.

He resolves to go find a café of some sorts, to rest and think and write down his observations, when he sees it. A smudge of chalk on the side of the headstone, where it's protected from the worst of the rain.

Not much. Just three dots. _A constellation, moron_.

Sirius was here.

It's a feeling not unlike the apex of a Wronski Feint: High speed, stop, start over again. Sirius is on the same trail, _Voldemort's_ trail, and not only that, he's ahead of him. Sirius will look at his little brother and say, _Twelve_ , just take it, step in the way of Regulus's bad luck, and laugh afterwards.

 _Not this time, brother_ , he thinks. _Not this time_.

* * *

On the first day of the Easter holidays, Regulus absconds from the Hogwarts Express somewhere in Bedfordshire. He takes in the landscape, supposes it could be charming in summer. Maybe even now, if spring so far hadn't been such a soggy, miserable affair.

His exit from Hogwarts hadn't been as smooth as he'd hoped. This very morning, McGonagall had actually come up to inform him he'd forgotten to sign up to stay at Hogwarts.

He supposes it's odd. All his classmates are staying, it's O.W.L. year, after all. "I was hoping to peruse my family's library for studying," he'd told McGonagall. "It is quite extensive."

McGonagall had laughed. "So I've been told," she'd said.

Then, surprisingly, she'd called him a bright student with a promising future, and to write if he needed any help, with Transfiguration or otherwise.

Regulus had thanked her politely. So much for his plan to leave as inconspicuously as possible.

He scans the hand-drawn map Bella has sent in her most recent letter – it'll be impossible to find Lestrange Manor without it – and sets off a narrow country lane. It's a weird place for Bella to live – he associates her with sprawling, putrid cities, London or Los Angeles or Hong Kong. This, he thinks, is positively _quaint_.

 _Quiet_.

 _Boring_.

At the manor, he is led to the parlour by a terrified young house elf named Ella – they're all terrified, and they're all young, mainly because house elves don't grow old in Lestrange Manor – where Bella is sprawled dramatically across a delicate chaise longue.

"I've been expecting you," she declaims.

"… So you got my message, then?" says Regulus politely. "Hello, cousin."

"No, I mean –" says Bella, and snaps up like a spring that uncoils, revealing her fatigue a mere feint. She reminds him so much of Sirius he thinks he could cry.

"I've been expecting you _since before Christmas_ ," she says, now crouching on the chaise longue, hair wild and eyes feral. "You're _late_ , cousin."

"Apologies," says Regulus. "It is an important decision."

"It's the easiest decision in the world!"

"And I have an answer for you," says Regulus.

Bella leans back against the armrest. "Maybe I don't _want_ it anymore," she whines. "Maybe you've dawdled too long. You think the Dark Lord needs laggards and doubters? Scaredy cats and weaklings and kids playing dress-up? No, I think we're going with the alternative I proposed."

 _Funny_ , Regulus thinks weakly. Funny how, along the way, everyone kept offering a way out. Sirius. McGonagall. Even Potter. Even _Bella_.

Yet here he is. "The answer is yes," he says, before his panic gets the better of him. Because Bella's proposed alternative is, frankly, terrible.

"Ha! I knew it," shouts Bella with unmistakeable glee. Then her eyes narrow again. "What on earth took you so long?"

"It's a yes, _but_ ," says Regulus. "You were right, Bella. I was scared." He hesitates. "I _am_ scared. I'm sorry."

"What on earth are you scared of?" snaps Bella. "Glory? Brilliance? A place in the history books? "

"I'm not strong, like you," says Regulus, almost whispering now. The whole thing is really starting to get to him. "I am weak. I am scared that he will know. That he will not accept me."

He takes a deep breath, then steps forward, draws back his sleeves. "You see?" he says. "There is no way he won't know, if he decides to honour me with his mark."

He'd never before thought he'd use his scars to win an argument, as dubious a victory as this is.

Bella laughs. "Oh, I see. The old Black curse. Thank Merlin it never got _me_."

She does seem shaken, though, and probably with good reason. From what Regulus knows about the Dark Lord, if she brings him in, any weakness he shows will reflect back on her. He can only hope she won't let that happen.

"Don't you worry," she says, finally. "Just being in His presence will change you. No more fear. No more pain. No more – " she searches his face, a touch of suspicion in her eyes. "Scruples? Well. We'll have none of that. Until you get there, though –" and here, her face brightens up. "Nothing a bit of Occlumency can't fix. I'll teach you, of course."

Regulus breathes out. " _Thank you_ ," he says.

"In fact," she says, retrieving the crooked twig she calls a wand from _somewhere_ in her lacy black dress, "We'll start right now. _Legilimens_!"

He almost tumbles backwards under the force of her mind. How could he have thought himself ready for this? He's not.

Surprisingly, he doesn't _have_ to be. There's nothing to hide, not where she looks. Not his diligent research, his growing preoccupation with the rise of the Dark Lord. Bella had said that _to know Him is to love Him_ – and Regulus had made sure he'd know him.

She queries Sirius, of course, but Sirius is dead to him; he hasn't talked to him in nearly half a year.

And finally, she looks for – what? An image flashes up in his mind, as vivid as if he were standing there: The photograph from the _Blackpool Gazette_? Regulus freezes in what is quite possibly terror – but Bella is used to terror, and it doesn't tell her anything. She grabs hold of him, and together they turn inside the photograph, three hundred sixty degrees.

But the beach is empty, the sky is empty, the sea – alas – is empty.

"Oh, this will do, this will do quite nicely," she says, and giggles. "You will be His by June."

* * *

_To be continued._


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Note:** Sorry for the delay – chapter 5 ¾ threw everything for a loop. I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote (between working and sleeping, I mean). I didn't read a thing. I did eat sometimes! I wrote about 6 different endings, and I finally picked one! And then chapter 6 became too long, so this is chapter 6a, and I'm very sorry about that, too. Thank you very much for your lovely feedback so far, and as always, I am looking forward to hearing what you think! Chapter 6b needs some ironing but I'm getting there.
> 
> **Warnings:** Suicidality and disturbing things.
> 
> *Quotes taken from Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince.

To Mr. Tom Marvolo Riddle

To He-Who-Must-Not-Remain

Pub league Grindelwald

Twentieth Century Bonaparte

Listen here you little shit

_**To the Dark Lord** _

I know you have a chip on your shoulder the size of bloody Hogwarts castle but

I know there is no way I am going to get out of this alive but

_**I know I will be dead long before you read this but I want you to know that** _

you can go fuck yourself, you pathetic little creep

you could slaughter a dozen Muggle villages and my mother still won't have you over for tea

seriously, you can go fuck yourself. Go sit on a Knarl

_**it was I who discovered your secret. I have stolen the real Horcrux and I** _

intend to destroy it as soon as I figure out how

am ready to lay the fate of the wizarding worlds in the hands of my trusted house-elf

I have literally no idea how to proceed from here but I have no intention of remaining in your esteemed presence for a second longer

_**intend to destroy it as soon as I can. I face** _

that oblivion

that black mass

that cancer

that nothing

_**death in the** _

hope

_**hope that when you meet your match, you will be mortal once more.** _

Regulus Arcturus Black.

_**R.A.B.*** _

P.S. You know what they say about a man with a big nose?

* * *

It is Hallowe'en, 1979, and Regulus Black has three days to live.

He is sick of the plan.

But plans are like Quidditch moves: Go through them a hundred times and maybe you will get them right on match day. They go over the plan, Regulus and Kreacher – at least, Regulus goes over the plan. Kreacher goes over all the ways he can say, "No." They comb through Grimmauld Place, room by room by dusty room, trying to find a hiding place that Walburga or Bella or Cissy will not stumble over. With Sirius gone and Father gone and Regulus soon gone, who knows who the house will pledge allegiance to.

Regulus is sick of Grimmauld Place, too, but he has been for some time now.

He remembers exploring the place as a child, how it never, ever stopped, just kept unfolding like a brick-and-mortar fractal. As an adult, it's easy to forget how enormous Grimmauld Place is, how organic, how labyrinthine. There's not only his bedroom and the drawing room and the kitchen. There are secret stairways and hidden mezzanines and second cellars and creaky attics. Too many bedrooms and overgrown winter gardens. Smells, too: Dust and mould, earth and smoke, camphor and vanilla.

The silence, though.

The silence is new. Unless he trips up his mother, or her downstairs portrait, Grimmauld Place is all dancing dust and heavy silence. In the gaps of their quiet conversation, when Kreacher tends to Mother, Regulus listens to the late October rain thrumming down on the holey roof, to the heart beating in his chest, to the blood rushing in his ears. He listens to the crack of his knees when he crouches down to check a loose floorboard, to the wheeze of his breath as he forces it past the ever-present lump in his throat – all reminders of how alive he still is. How much he does not want to die.

It's a peculiar sort of goodbye, mapping this house, this fort, this hold of terrible secrets. He'll give it one more terrible secret to hold. Just one. It'll fit right in.

But there is one curious thing.

"Where does all this parchment come from?" he mutters, peering into a cabinet full of expired potions in an abandoned bathroom whose taps must have been dripping since the Grindelwald era.

"Kreacher can't say, Master Regulus," says Kreacher through the thick, slow air of depression that has shrouded him since he came back from that cave. Regulus feels an acute stab of guilt whenever the house-elf speaks up – he'd volunteered him, after all - but there'd been an epiphany on the verge of happening, it'd just needed that last spark, that last bit of information –

_Focus, Black. Parchment._

It's an ongoing mystery. Whenever Regulus finds a halfway reasonable hiding place, there's a piece of parchment already crammed in there. They look like pages torn from a diary – but Regulus's diary is full of notes, newspaper articles, mind maps, a detailed account of the Dark Lord's rise, speculations on his best-kept secrets. These are dreamy. Boy's stuff. Drawings of people, of dogs, of Thestrals, maps that have long since lost their animation charms, diary entries written in Sirius's slanted hand that don't mean anything anymore. Lies, or stories maybe.

"Funny," says Regulus, his fingers grey with dust. "Do you remember Sirius having a diary like mine?"

The house-elf shrugs miserably. "Kreacher can't say, Master Regulus," he repeats, and wanders off, muttering to himself. Regulus lets him.

Regulus burns the pages when he finds them, doesn't even think about why he's doing it, just throws them in the nearest fireplace. He's not feeling particularly vindictive – more like he's fulfilling a long-forgotten promise, but he can't dwell on it, not now, his hours are counted, and all accounted for. Summons, gatherings, throwing up lunch, finding a hiding place for a piece of the Dark Lord's splintered soul. Maybe he just wants to see beautiful things burn.

Regulus saves the study for last. The Ancient Roman _tablinum_ is where he'd found his father, not a month ago, surrounded by paperwork; his affairs, of course, left _in medias res_ – despite all of Uncle Cygnus's warnings, Orion hadn't expected to die.

Regulus wonders what that's like – to be surprised by death, not in league with it, not dance and argue and reason with death for weeks before he goes.

The study, of course, is a terrible hiding place. It will be swarming with people not before long, when there's no-one to head the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black - yet Regulus cannot help but open drawer after drawer; after all, his father was a master in hiding dark objects out in the open. There must be a clue to how he did it, there must be _something_ -

One of the drawers contains three heavy notebooks, creamy parchment bound in faded green leather. The one at the top, labelled _Sirius Orion Black,_ is two thirds full, entries written in Sirius's slanted, shaky script and corrected in Orion's heavier one, all following the same structure: Offence. Punishment. Lesson learned. A second bears Regulus's own name, and he refuses to look inside.

Regulus burns both notebooks in the fireplace, where his father used to keep the Holloway rods. He's sure Sirius won't care to have anyone in their family find this document of cruelty, of – and Regulus tries out a word that has wormed its way into his vocabulary, ever since McGonagall said it out loud, years ago: _Abuse_. Because that's what it was.

The day, short as it is, is slipping away when Regulus leaves his father's study, giving it a last once-over – he needs to _hide_ the evidence of what he's about to do, he's not about to create more of it - and indeed, there's a piece of parchment in the middle of the marble floor, maybe fallen from one of the notebooks. He picks it up, intending to throw it into the still-glowing fire – but something makes him glance down.

"You hid one in the _study_ , Sirius?" he murmurs under his breath. Sometimes, his ex-brother's chutzpah still sneaks up on him.

This one's different from the others he found. It's not a map, it's not a portrait, it's not a long-winded account of a bad day at Grimmauld Place. It's just lines, swirling together, forming waves; a silver glow reflects off his signet ring, barely visible in the darkening room. Regulus half-remembers an evening at the seaside, one of so, so many, Sirius bewitching his quill to draw the water underneath the pier, when suddenly –

Again, the memory cuts off, comes to that sudden, sickening stop he's so used to by now.

But this time, something comes running, breathless, on its heels –

\- crashes right into it -

"Regulus-like-the-star," says a voice.

Regulus turns, and nearly doubles over. A word burns in his memory, misshapen and crude:

gHoSt

A pale, translucent child stands in front of the fireplace – seven or eight years old, features sharper than any he's ever seen on a ghost. Bright, wide eyes that resemble Sirius's, tousled dark hair, a face with high cheekbones and a pointy chin that's clearly Black, almost to the point of parody. His robes, soaked and sodden as they are, are clearly expensive, if outdated.

The block in Regulus's memory, that massive thing that's missing – it has never been clearer than now. Because this is it, this is exactly its shape and its form.

But still, that last leap of recognition is missing.

Because Regulus knows now he should recognise him. Knows that boy is as familiar as the creak in the staircase, the disappointment in his mother's eyes, the grey October light in an empty bedroom filled with dusty toys.

"Please, it's the last one," says the ghost, pointing to the parchment that Regulus is about to throw into the fireplace.

Regulus finds himself momentarily muted as he turns the parchment in his hands. The ghost takes his hesitation for resistance.

"Please, I'll be good," says the ghost, "I know how to be good, you know, I haven't shown myself since the day the diary burned. I am so, so sorry for what they did to you, after. But don't burn that parchment, too, please, it's the last one…"

As the ghost dissolves into tears, Regulus finds back his voice. "Who _are_ you?" he says.

"I'm water," says the ghost. "I'm a light on the waves. I don't know! I haven't had a name in a hundred million years."

There's an epiphany on the verge of happening, Regulus can feel it in his fingertips. In his teeth. In a hundred million nerve endings prickling at once. Like when Kreacher told his tale from the cave: Horcrux. Like when Lupin looked up from his calendar: Werewolf.

Unfortunately, another epiphany is just about the last thing Regulus needs right now, not when he has three days to live and a lifetime of mistakes to atone for. But he's been historically unable to resist these things, and now, they slot into place, without noise nor mercy.

Because it's all there, in his diary, the one thing in his life that takes chaos and turns it into reason:

… _boy whose body was washed up on Blackpool beach… An autopsy has confirmed the cause of death as drowning… The boy is described as dark-haired, fair-skinned, and wearing expensive, foreign clothes…_

"You're the mystery of Blackpool beach," says Regulus.

The boy looks at his shoes. "That's what the Muggles called me," he says quietly. "They came to my funeral, you know. They built me a headstone. It said –"

" _Sweet dreams, dear child_ ," says Regulus. If only, he thinks. If only.

"I tried to say thanks, but the Muggles got scared," says the ghost, his voice now barely above a whisper.

Three dots, drawn into the side of the headstone. _A constellation, moron_. Deneb, Vega, and –

Why the name comes to him _now_ , of all times, Regulus can't explain. He never can. Diary entries have spread and connected in the back of his mind, formed a thicket, a web, a net, and that net has caught a _thing_ – and here he is, standing in the exact same spot where his father lay bleeding to death, his own diary close to his heart, the last page of Sirius's in his hand, and the ghost right in front of him, and – it's _enough_. It's finally _enough_.

"Altair," says Regulus. "You're Altair. Like the star." The name flutters in his mind, then settles, fits.

The ghost nods mutely.

"You can't stay here, Altair," says Regulus. "I'll soon be gone, and what then?"

He thinks of the ghost child, trapped in this house with only Mother and her portrait and Kreacher in it. He shakes his head – another problem he's expected to solve in time he does not have.

"I know," says the ghost. "I heard you talk to Kreacher. What you're planning. Please, please don't." He whispers, like he's telling a secret. "It's going to kill you."

The child glides forward, a ghostly hand reaching out for Regulus – but it passes through, leaving only a shiver and a feeling of loss.

"I know, Altair," says Regulus, even though he knows he shouldn't, should lie and placate like he does his mother. "There is no other way."

Still, there's that face, impossibly familiar, peering up at him, saying things an eight-year-old shouldn't know. "Drowning is a terrible death," the ghost says quickly, as if he has to work up the courage to say it at all. "You think it's like falling asleep in a bed made of water, but it's not. It _hurts_ and it goes on _forever_ and you want nothing more than to _breathe_ and all the while you know – you know you can't save yourself."

If Satan himself were to send him temptation, something that would make him not do the one thing that might redeem him – Regulus supposes it would look something like this. A drowned child, ghost of summers past.

"I _can't_ save myself," says Regulus, like this is an argument, like he needs to convince a ghost before he can do as he pleases. "But maybe I can save everyone else. Is that too much to ask?"

He scolds himself. It's too much to ask a child. How could Altair even begin to understand?

The boy peers up at him from long-lashed eyes, and surprises him by saying, "Then let me come with you."

"You're a _child_ ," says Regulus. "It's not for children."

There's a shaky laugh. "What, dying?" says the ghost. "Dying is for everyone, Regulus-like-the-star. I died. And I can show you the way. So you don't have to die alone." His voice is trembling again, but he carries on. "So you don't have to panic," he says. "So you don't have to be a ghost –"

Regulus can't say the thought has crossed his mind before. Well. It does now. Repeatedly, leaving behind a trail of panic. " _What_ ," he says.

"The Muggles said _Sweet Dreams_ ," says the ghost. "But this is not sweet, and it's not a dream. Let me come with you."

It's not entirely typical ghost behaviour, thinks Regulus. The ghosts he knows are usually happiest when left to their own devices, rattling their chains. The thought that he could go through this, through all that lies before him, the cave, the potion, the Inferi, the drowning… just to be forced back and haunt the site of his death…

_Why_? Why would he want that? Why would anyone?

"Why are you here, Altair?" he says. He realises he keeps repeating the name, like he's making up for lost opportunities, like he's trying to etch it into his mind.

"You know why," says the ghost. "Sirius-like-the-star, he brought me here in a book, he –"

"No," says Regulus, and he tries to be gentle, with all that he has left. "I mean, why did you stay? Why did you not… move on?"

The ghost looks away, like he's caught misbehaving. "I thought I could wait it out," he whispers. "Till you're gone from this house. Both of you. I thought I could get my revenge then. But I can't, can I? I'm still just a kid, I won't ever be anything else. I'm still scared. I will always be scared. Because – because -"

"Revenge on whom, Altair?" says Regulus.

The ghost's voice is almost inaudible. "You call her _Mother_ ," he says. "So I guess that's what I call her, too."

Regulus can feel his face set into a mask. It's the same he wore when he took the Mark. "Come with me, Altair," he says. "But hide. I need to think."

The ghost looks almost thankful. He nods and dissolves.

The drawing room is dusty. Walburga doesn't come here often anymore, so depressing does she find the state of her family. Kreacher is in a corner of the room, shampooing the same patch of carpet over and over again – of course, he hasn't been the same since his ordeal in the cave. Regulus pays him no mind.

Parchment tucked neatly away into a pocket, he turns to the tapestry.

There's the ugly scorch mark where Sirius's name used to be. There's his own, Regulus Arcturus Black, born 25th June 1961. And next to them: Nothing, an empty space, unusual on the crowded tapestry. Something is missing from the tapestry, cut out from his life, but somehow it left this empty space, this child-sized hole.

Of course.

Walburga adds the names to the tapestry at the first sign of magic. And if a child dies before that -

Regulus allows himself to be side-tracked. He thinks of births, and deaths, and brothers. His searching fingers return to his own name, again, _Regulus Arcturus Black_ , born 25th June 1961. Son of Orion and Walburga Black. No other lines connect his name to anything, or anyone.

Regulus thinks of Sirius and his Werewolf boyfriend, of how repulsed he should be, but here, now, his own thankless death in sight, he understands that it is madness to trim and mangle and prune a life until it fits on a tapestry.

But even now, after the choices he's made, Regulus can't help begrudging Sirius this: That he gets to be the one who survives, the one who gets to love and be loved and grow old; not that Sirius is very good at any of these. Because Regulus knows, with a sickening sort of clarity, that if Sirius hadn't walked out when he did, it would be him standing here, Marked and nauseated and about to die.

Regulus touches the part of the tapestry where his own death date will soon appear, through magic darker and older than anything they teach in Hogwarts. 3rd November 1979 if all goes according to plan, the smallest, most personal of revenges: Make Sirius care. Make Sirius _remember_ , with each passing birthday, that he is the one who gets to grow old.

His eyes keep fleeing from that empty patch, that hollow space next to where Sirius's name is burned out, and he forces them back. Closes his eyes and imagines a name written there, a birth date, a death date. It fits, horribly so.

Altair. _Altair_. Deneb, Vega, and Altair, the summer triangle.

Altair, one-of-three.

"I know who you are," he whispers. Behind him, Kreacher creeps out of the room with the smallest of sounds.

He should have known that it's not just the portraits that have been spying on them. Of course there was Kreacher, too. Regulus takes a deep breath, tells himself Kreacher can't help it.

A sudden impulse has him take out his quill, mark the empty spot on the tapestry where that name should be – three dots, just three tiny dots in the richly textured fabric, he tells himself. No-one will notice. Because he knows now that his memories are fleeting, vulnerable; they might just dissolve as soon as he turns his back –

But there they are, he sees them clearly. Three pinpricks of ink, three stars, a triangle.

He's come this far before.

Ah.

Regulus waits until the door to the drawing room opens. He swallows, out of terrible, habitual fear. But he's older now, and he's stood before Voldemort and lied to his face. He can do this, too.

"Obliviate me again and I will retaliate," says Regulus.

Walburga huffs. "You always say that. You never go through with it."

Regulus nods. "Then it's time, don't you think?"

When he turns, it's with _Expelliarmus_ on his lips. He catches her wand with a Seeker's reflex.

Walburga doesn't seem at all surprised. "Give that back," she says mildly, her hand held out with infuriating confidence.

"Don't you think you've done enough?" says Regulus. Yet, her words pull at him – eighteen years of obedience pitted against a single spell, a single act of defiance. He'd rather go against Voldemort again. Regulus nearly falters, turning her wand in his hands.

"Give that back," repeats Walburga. "And we'll forget about this little episode. It'll be as it was. I promise." Her voice is sweet as honey; she's clearly not expecting him to refuse. He wonders how many times she's spoken these words.

They pull at him, they pull him in – but today is different. Because forgetting is the last thing Regulus can afford right now. Forget what brought him here, and he might not go into that cave, and that unholy war will never, ever stop.

"Do you regret it?" he asks. "Ever?"

Walburga regards him with a chilling expression. "More than you can possibly imagine," she says, like this – even this - is a competition she needs to win.

Regulus thinks of the tattoo marring the skin of his arm. "I don't need to," he says.

"Oh, the innocence of youth," says Walburga. "I've had to live with this. All these years, I've had to miss him. Thirteen years, four months, four days, _I've missed him_. I protected you from this. Isn't that mercy, Regulus? Isn't that what a mother does?"

It's possibly the first time she's ever tried to explain herself, and it explains so, so much.

It's not revenge, he tells himself. It's not a comeback, it's not even self-defence - it's just a safety measure. Whatever it is, Regulus doesn't have a choice. He takes his mother's wand - eleven inches, oak tree and Grandfather Pollux's bone marrow – and snaps it in two.

* * *

In the middle of a noisy, shouty, pointless aftermath, Regulus finds it wise to leave Grimmauld Place for a while. Besides, he's about to die. He's perfectly entitled to taking a little risk.

He didn't expect to get Stunned. But then again, Regulus ponders, coming to on a damp bit of grass, he is surprisingly optimistic for a man on his deathbed.

"No worries," calls a female voice. "He's just had a few too many – whoopsie daisy, there you go…"

The bystanders scatter, muttering things like "Kids nowadays" and "it's not even five" and "in _my_ time" while the woman helps him up. Regulus pats his pocket with that same sort of unfounded optimism, but of course his wand is gone.

He's still dizzy when she throws a companionable arm around his shoulders, leans in, and hisses into his ear, "You have some nerve coming here, Regulus Black."

Ah. That would be his wand, pressed into his back, along with Andromeda's own.

Through his mental fog, Regulus tries to remember why he's here. "I need to talk," he says.

"Nothing to talk about," she says, still uncomfortably close. "Your old man may have snuffed it, but the deal is still on. Tell your mother that." She pauses, taking in her surroundings, and says, "To that bench. Slowly."

Slowly he can do. Regulus takes the time to have a good look around himself – and he realises why Andromeda can so casually break the International Statue of Secrecy: It's Hallowe'en in Hyde Park; Muggles dressed as witches and wizards, witches and wizards dressed as Dementors and hags or just as themselves; it's the one day of the year when they don't have to hide. Somewhere in that gaggle of children is Andromeda's seven-year-old daughter, pink-haired, dressed as some sort of silly bedazzled snake, shrieking with laughter.

Andromeda sees him watching them, and half circles him, bringing herself between him and the children.

Oh _god_ , Regulus realises with a feeling not entirely unlike a bucket of ice sliding down his spine. That's what he is now, isn't it? A threat to primary school kids. His resolve to go into that cave has never been stronger.

"There's no need for that," he mutters. "You have my wand."

She snorts. "Oh, come on, silly. We both know you don't need a wand to kill a child."

A slip of the tongue? A coincidence? Does it matter? Regulus stills, and so does his cousin.

But appearances first. Before he speaks, Regulus sinks down on the edge of the bench, looking for all the world like a drunk youth not quite catching his balance. Andromeda sits next to him, towards the middle, close enough so they can talk quietly; both their wands held tightly in her fist.

"You knew all this time," he says.

"Yes," she says.

"You gave us the diaries."

She huffs. "Someone had to."

"You met the ghost?"

"No, but I saw him," says Andromeda. "That one night on the pier seven years ago, he was shining like a torch. I was surprised you two still didn't remember after that, but –" she shrugs, as if she doesn't really care. "Walburga's memory charms are top notch, I have to give her that."

Regulus hesitates before he asks. After all, isn't it better if he take this uncertainty to his grave? Isn't it, as Walburga said, _mercy_?

And doesn't he deserve that much? The answer is quick, and it is clear: No.

"Altair was our brother, wasn't he?" he says.

Andromeda gives him another long look, but this one's more nuanced. "Oh, Reg," she says. "After all these years, you're still just guessing?"

Regulus shrugs. Even to guess, he has to navigate a mental labyrinth, because there's something in his mind that still pushes back when it comes to the ghost, and the pier, and drowning. "I forgot most of my childhood the summer before third year," he says.

Andromeda pauses, remembering, and Regulus tries hard not to envy her that: That memories come to her so easily. "That was the summer Sirius figured it out," she says finally. "The summer you tried to die."

_The Black family curse_ , he wants to say, repeat the mantra that carried him through third year, _just a curse, happens to the best of us – especially the best of us_ , but he doesn't even know if those are his words, or his mother's.

And if it had been a curse, he thinks now, if that had been the path his Black blood had laid out for him – couldn't anyone have seen it? Couldn't anyone have helped?

"Please tell me what happened, Andromeda," he pleads. "In Blackpool. When I was five."

"Hasn't your mother told that story many, many times?" says Andromeda, and her voice takes on a mocking tone. " _Remember that day Regulus nearly drowned, just slipped and fell off the pier… Remember that day Regulus nearly drowned, his brother fell into him, I suppose boys will be boys… Remember that day Regulus nearly drowned, Sirius tripped him up on the pier, of course we had to punish him…_ "

" _Enough_ ," says Regulus, almost instinctively. That thing in his mind that pushes back is pushing now, and it's pushing hard.

"It wasn't you who fell off the pier," says Andromeda, "and it wasn't Sirius's fault."

"Enough –" he repeats. Or _something_ repeats it, inside his head, something that, after all these years, still wants to retreat into a safe cocoon of silence.

But he came this far. Andromeda smiles for the first time, a thin, Slytherin sort of smile, and still kinder than any smile he's seen an adult wear in Grimmauld Place.

"It's not a long story," she says. Her wand, he notes, is still pointed at his heart. "Your brother Altair was barely a year older than Sirius. He was seven, nearly eight, when he died."

It's almost not there, but it is: Hesitation. A tremor, a hitch in her breath. Despite the callousness, despite the grudge she carries for her birth family, Regulus realises this can't be easy on her either.

"He had never shown any signs of magic," says Andromeda. "Sirius was only six, and he got in trouble for all sorts of shenanigans, switched the lights back on after he was sent to bed, drew Muggle tech and made it move… But there was nothing from Altair. Not a spark, not a hint. Just a kind, clever boy. Liked to read. Liked to tell you stories. A sixth sense for danger like you wouldn't believe."

She pauses, thinking, or reminiscing.

"Walburga was itching to get him on that wretched tapestry," she continues. "Her first-born son, and all that. She tried to scare it out of him, tried to bully, yell, hit, and ignore him into showing magic, and he tried and he tried, but he couldn't. But there's one thing that will reliably draw out a child's magic, if it's there."

"Mortal peril," says Regulus without thinking. The words are right there, in his diary, in his mind.

Andromeda nods.

"I know what I saw," she says. "My father says it was an accident. My mother does not talk about it. But we were all there, in Blackpool, your family and mine, and Walburga shoved him off the deep end, and he drowned, and we watched, and I swear to god that is what happened that day."

"You watched," Regulus says flatly.

"I was _eleven_ ," says Andromeda.

"I don't mean you," says Regulus. "I meant – my parents, and your parents, and – "

"Sirius was nearly burning up with naïve magic," says Andromeda. "But he was only six, and Walburga held him back. She told everyone to wait, just wait, Altair would prove himself in a moment… I know I was terrified. Bella was laughing. I don't know what the adults were thinking, I could never look at them the same, after."

"What happened then?" says Regulus. "What did they do?"

"Well, Bella and I were big, sensible girls," says Andromeda with just a hint of derision in her voice. "We got a lecture on Black family values. What happens in the family stays in the family; I'm sure you're familiar with that one. The little ones – that's Cissy, Sirius, and you - were memory-charmed. It's easier on young children, see. Some say it prevents trauma." She laughs. "I think the objective was to prevent questions."

"I have questions," says Regulus calmly.

"I thought you would," says Andromeda. "You get three."

Fitting, somehow, thinks Regulus. Three stars in a triangle. Three days to live. "Thank you," he says. "If it wasn't me who drowned - why do I remember drowning?"

"How in hell would I know?" Andromeda looks at him like he's grown a second head, and Regulus remembers that his cousin is still basically not on his side. Not that he can begrudge her that.

"Guess," he says.

"There was a drowning, and you were panicking," says Andromeda. "Your five-year-old mind combined the two. The memory charm couldn't erase it, because it wasn't a real memory."

He nods. "Makes sense," he says, maybe so she'll stop talking.

"I just made that up on the spot," she says. "I think we both know by now that memory charms do not prevent trauma." She's watching him, he realises, with a special sort of scrutiny. "Maybe," she says, "it's your mind's attempt to understand a terrible loss."

She pauses. "I have sisters, you know," she says. "And they're not good people. But they're more than the sum of memories. They're _me_. They explain me. I can't imagine them missing –"

There's a huge heavy thing trailing in the wake of these words. Regulus catches but an edge of it, and already it's more than he can imagine carrying, now, in the last three days of his life: That there had been - could have been - someone in his life as important as Sirius, a _brother_ , a puzzle piece, a third star, the thing that's missing.

"Two more questions, Regulus," says Andromeda.

If only there were more time.

"Why could Sirius always see Thestrals," he says, "and I never could, until –"

_Until I joined him_ , is what almost slips out, and he bites his tongue so hard he tastes blood. It's moments like these that he's glad there's a cave waiting for him. It's what he deserves.

Andromeda gives him a hard look.

"You don't just need to see death," she says. "You need to understand it, the entire gravity of it, the loss, the life ending, the hole it leaves in the world. Sirius is almost two years older than you, and he understood it in that moment, before he was Obliviated: That something was ending. That he was the oldest now. One last question, Regulus."

One question doesn't seem remotely enough, and yet far, far too much. Regulus wants to take his time, wants to think this through – but time is exactly what he doesn't have. The clock is ticking.

"Why did Sirius figure it out, and I didn't?" he asks. "I kept stumbling over it, but it always got away – like a carpet drawn away from under me."

Andromeda gives him another long look, but this one's not cool, or dismissive. It's rather like a mother would look at her child, and he squirms involuntarily.

"Didn't those diaries strike you as odd at all?" she says.

"They kept changing things," says Regulus. "In the beginning. But I think that was…"

"Your mother, of course," says Andromeda. "I told you little snots to pick good pass-phrases. I mean the diaries themselves – well. Maybe _diaries_ is the wrong word. The shopkeeper called them _Paper Pensieves_. You know how a Pensieve works?"

"I have a rough idea," says Regulus. "You put thoughts in, to examine them more objectively."

"That's how you use it," says Andromeda. "Not how it works. You put your thoughts in, and the Pensieve separates them from their physical substrate. And then, they're not ink on parchment, they're not electrical impulses in your brain – just pure, unmalleable information, independent from anything that can be damaged. No matter how much your mother changes the words on the pages, or fucks with the memories in your brain. "

"So that's how they become so clear, so objective," says Regulus. "That's how their connections become apparent…"

"You seem disappointed, cousin," says Andromeda lightly.

Regulus is, a bit. So that's how a teenager could figure out the Dark Lord's best-kept secret. It feels like he's cheating.

He feels like he should be past matters of the ego, so close to the end of his life. It hurts him that he's not.

Andromeda sighs. "So that's the answer to your question, Regulus. Your brother used his diary one hell of a lot more than you. Do you know how hard it is to erase an entire life? Sirius found the bits that were left, and he looked at them until they made sense."

"Mother burned it," says Regulus. "Before she made him forget it all over. She burned his diary."

"And it became something else," says Andromeda. "Heat, and smoke, and ashes. It takes more than fire to destroy the truth, but it became…" she pauses. "Scattered. I don't know if he had the time to properly look for it."

Regulus thinks. He knows he should get back, knows he's dawdling, stalling, because there's a cave and his death waiting for him in three days' time. "I have another question, if I may."

Andromeda shrugs. "No guarantees."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

He makes a helpless hand gesture, and she jabs him in the chest with her wand. No sudden movements, he thinks. Got it. "Why this complicated song and dance," he says. "Why the diaries. Why just not _tell us_. Why not tell anyone that my mother is a – a _murderer_."

"For what it's worth," says Andromeda, "I really think it wasn't on purpose. She never did believe the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black could mate with itself and produce something as atrocious as a _Squib_. She thought he'd show that accidental magic and make her proud. Bet she thought he died just to spite her."

"If I were looking for excuses, I'd go ask my mother," says Regulus. "Why didn't _you_ tell anyone? We grew up in that house, with _her_ , with _them_ , and you allowed it. Everyone just _allowed_ it. Why?"

"Oh, believe me, Regulus," says Andromeda. "I needed to keep my head way the fuck down. I was surviving, remember? The only way was for you to figure it out for yourselves. And –" she pauses, "you need to know, Regulus, that for a long time, this was what I knew. I thought it was normal. I understand exactly how crazy your parents were, because mine weren't better."

"But you eloped," says Regulus. "You were free of them."

"Do you think I can just live in the middle of London, bold as you please?" she says. "Still wear my name and my face around here, with my Muggleborn husband and freak daughter, when my sister and my _cousin_ are part of Voldemort's inner circle? I made a deal with your father, after I left. My silence for their safety."

She looks over to where her daughter is still playing, then back to Regulus. "I'm sorry, Reg," she says. "But we all have a price. And my family is mine."

Regulus closes his eyes. Maybe, he thinks, maybe this is exactly what he needs to hear right now: When he's on the brink of death, readying himself to take that last step. Disappointment: That's what he needs.

"How could she," he says absent-mindedly, his thoughts stuck in a cave in Devon. "How could all of you."

The cold is back in Andromeda's eyes. "You know exactly how, Regulus Black," she says. "You took his Mark. You do his deeds. Squibs and Muggleborns and Blood-traitors, they're all but gravel under his boots, aren't they? You ask me why we allowed this, why we let you live with these monsters. But you know what? You're not a monster. You're worse. Because you chose all this. So let me ask you something in return. What do you want? _Why are you here_?"

Knowing that he is just one wrong movement away from being hexed into oblivion, Regulus reaches a slow, deliberate hand into his pocket, retrieves the lonely page from Sirius's diary: The movement of the sea before Blackpool, that lone ghostly shine. _Please, it's the last one_ , Altair had said.

"The ghost needs a home," he says. "Not Grimmauld Place. A proper home, where children can be happy. Please, will you take him in?"

Andromeda seems struck, and Regulus reminds himself this is a rather large favour he's asking.

"Please," he repeats. "Take him, or he'll haunt my mother for all eternity."

A brief, cold smile. "She deserves it, don't you think?"

" _He_ doesn't," says Regulus. "He's just a little kid."

Andromeda's face softens, and Regulus feels like he has passed some sort of test.

"Oh, Regulus," she says. "You're cleaning up, aren't you? You're leaving."

He knows what epiphanies feel like, but he doesn't usually see them in others. Andromeda's wand is shaking, and finally, finally she lets it sink.

Regulus knows that he should go at once, knows that secrecy is paramount – because no-one can know, no-one can ever know what he did, what he's about to do.

He doesn't go. He doesn't say anything, either.

"You can't, Regulus," she says. "He will kill you, He'll send my sister after you, and you know what she's like. She'll torture you. She'll cut off your legs. She'll leave your remains for the birds, and take photos for her mantlepiece."

"I've seen her mantlepiece," says Regulus with a weak smile. "You're not wrong."

" _Don't_ give her an excuse," says Andromeda.

Regulus gives himself a long pause to think – but really, is this not the legend he needs to sow? That he got cold feet. That he ran, and was murdered for it. Just a few facts, he thinks. A few facts will do it.

"He had Sirius," Regulus says quietly. "They had him captured in an outpost in Warwickshire, a couple of weeks ago, him and Lupin. I was to kill them."

He didn't expect a smile. "Well, given that your brother just ruined my front lawn with his stupid motorbike the other day," says Andromeda, "I guess that mission failed ."

"I failed," says Regulus simply. "He was most displeased."

"Reg –"

Andromeda's voice is full of emotion, and by now he knows she appreciates his conflict. Sirius would yell, or just explode, would tell him exactly what to do. Throw his lot in with Dumbledore, tell him everything he knows – but the Dark Lord would know. The Dark Lord always knows. He'd make another Horcrux out of Regulus's scattered remains.

"I am _done_ surviving, Andromeda," he says. "You promised a life after this. Well. This is it, for better or worse."

Andromeda closes her eyes. She is thinking, he can see that much, and she keeps on thinking for a long, slow minute. Then she says, "No."

"No?"

"I can't take him," she says. "Your ghost. He doesn't belong with me. He belongs with you."

_Oh_ , thinks Regulus. How come, after all these years, he still can't believe how much of a brick wall his cousin can be. He hasn't expected her to help _him_ , of course, not after last time, but he'd sort of expected her to help a seven-year-old child.

The parchment is still in Regulus's hand, and he turns it, but no argument is forthcoming. "Where I'm going –" he starts, but he can't, he can't. How to tell her he needs her to do this? How to ask her to be _good_ , when he himself is still so far short of even _redeemed_?

"This is your penance, and it's your reward," says Andromeda. "You won't go alone, and you can't go alone. You finally found him. Let that matter, Regulus."

Regulus's thoughts are full of seawater now, a steady roar, a lapping tide. Not long now, he thinks. He watches Andromeda's young daughter, Nymphadora, dressed as a pink glittery snake, playing with the other children, the hem of her costume caked in mud. He wonders if Altair would have liked her. He wonders what they would talk about –

_Oh god no_ , he realises with a sudden chill. Of course. Altair listens. Altair _knows_. He'd even said it: _Don't. It's going to kill you. Drowning is a terrible death_. He is not like Kreacher, who can be ordered to keep quiet… Regulus will have to take him. By Merlin, he is going to die, and now he must take the ghost of his seven year old brother along, to watch…

"I need to go," he says. Speaking those words is like crawling through quicksand, slow, exhausting, every grain resisting him. "If you see Sirius, tell him –"

\- and he pauses, because he hasn't actually thought that far. He'd thought he had it all figured out six hours ago.

"Tell him yourself, will you?" says Andromeda.

"I really don't have that sort of time."

Andromeda gets up from the bench, an entirely too clever little smile playing on her lips. "Come on, Reg," she says. "You didn't actually think I'd talk to a confirmed Death Eater without calling for backup?"

"You know, I keep telling people he's brilliant," says a disembodied voice. "I think I'm going to stop."

On the other side of the bench, there's movement in the air, and a moment later, Sirius emerges from underneath that god-forsaken Invisibility Cloak of Potter's.

Regulus groans. "Oh, you are _such_ a Slytherin, Andromeda," he says.

"And I'm expecting a heartfelt letter of thanks later," says Andromeda. "Now excuse me, my favourite idiots, I need to go parent my own kid for a change."

She leaves Regulus's wand with Sirius, and they watch her wander off to where her daughter is getting a little too flashy with the accidental magic.

"So," says Sirius. "You wanted to tell me something?" He seems cautious, and not particularly overjoyed to see his brother, but the feeling is mutual.

So many things, thinks Regulus. Probably best if he doesn't say anything at all, because his brother is fiercely intelligent, and he will piece together the truth from whatever Regulus has to offer him. Like he's always done.

"I don't know," he says. "I really don't know. Goodbye?"

"I don't do goodbyes," says Sirius. "Try again."

"What do you want to hear?" says Regulus. "That you were right all along? If that makes you happy, sure. You were right all along."

"Trust me," says Sirius. "I've been wrong more often than I care to admit." He leans forward, head tilted, interest piqued. "Why don't you start at the beginning?"

"You were there for the beginning," says Regulus.

"All right," says Sirius. "Start at the end."

Regulus looks into that face, so suspicious and guarded, so familiar, and still so bloody _curious_.

"I snapped Mother's wand today," he says.

All those previous times he failed to impress his brother are suddenly worth it, because that brief look of wide-eyed surprise, of pleasure and even respect is like a glass of water after a long trek through the desert.

Then Sirius laughs. "I'm sorry," he says. "But it's just so perfectly Freudian. Shame Father died before you got rebellious."

And god damn it. Regulus feels like he hasn't smiled in two years, ever since that snake and skull first started eating him, but now he feels his entire face twist into something he has gone so long without: A genuine smile.

It doesn't hold, because he is still going to die in three days' time. Die like his father did, a month ago, in pain and alone, at the end of a crooked path he chose for himself. The heaviness of it must show up on his face, because his brother is looking at him, looking for something that he is so, so good at deciphering.

"You know, the obituary never said what he died of," says Sirius.

"I found him," says Regulus. "In his study."

Sirius smiles slightly. "I don't suppose it was a stroke, was it."

Regulus takes a deep breath. Of all his memories, why must this one be so vivid? It still makes him dizzy sometimes. "Those Holloway rods –" he begins, notices he's wringing his hands, and keeps them very still.

"- were leaning innocently against the mantlepiece?" says Sirius.

"I think they were sated for once," says Regulus.

Sirius's reaction is as involuntary as his own: He draws his leather jacket tighter around himself, eyes closed briefly against the bright light of remembered pain. Then he reaches into a pocket, extracts a battered pack of Muggle cigarettes, places one in his mouth, looks around for anyone watching, and lights up with his wand.

"I am sorry you had to see that," he says. "Terrible way to go."

"It _is_ terrible, isn't it?" says Regulus. "Uncle Cygnus did warn him."

Sirius laughs. It's not a happy laugh. "A good man wouldn't have needed a warning," he says. "Well. Certainly explains why the funeral wasn't open casket."

Regulus should probably just stop being surprised. At least when it comes to his brother. "You went to the funeral?" he says.

"Of course I did," says Sirius.

"Of _course_ you did," says Regulus, increasingly aware that he's feeling things that aren't despair, or fear, or regret. Granted, right now he's feeling defeated by his brother's antics, but he's _missed_ this. He's missed this _so much_. "How –" he starts.

"Polyjuice, of course," says Sirius. "I was cousin Antares from the other side of the family tapestry." He pauses. "I came to see you."

"And what did you see?" Regulus asks quietly.

"A Death Eater," says Sirius.

His reply stings. But that is the simple truth of it. "Yes," says Regulus.

"Why?"

Regulus hesitates. He needs to extricates himself from this conversation – it hurts, for once. It is for nought, too – he's going to die in three days, so what is the point? Let his brother think what he thinks. Maybe Sirius won't have to miss him so much.

It scares him, how much he is his mother's son.

"Did they make you?" says Sirius softly. "Did they blackmail you? Did they put you under the Imperius?" His meaning is clear: _Tell me how to save you_.

_No_. "I chose this," says Regulus. "I'm sorry. I know it's not what you want to hear."

"You _idiot_ ," says Sirius. He takes a long drag off his cigarette. "Why? Why would you choose this? I'd rather die."

"That's why," says Regulus. "Well. That's part of why."

There's a very long pause, a lot of smoke, and even more confusion. "What?" says Sirius.

"He has a pattern," says Regulus. "The Dark Lord. It's obvious, when you know what to look for. He collects –"

"People," says Sirius.

" _Families_ ," says Regulus. "He has none to speak of, and he thinks that's what he's owed: All the Pureblood families in the country, aligned with him through terror or servitude. It was you or me, join him or die. And I knew you weren't going to join."

For a moment, Sirius is very, very still. Until he's not, and then he laughs. "Don't tell me you did this for me," he says. "Not in my name. Not ever in my name." He pauses, thinking. "So this is just out of interest. How am I even part of this equation? Doesn't disownment count for anything anymore?"

"Children's squabble, to him," says Regulus. "It's blood he's interested in. Not tradition."

"Huh."

Neither of them say anything for a long while. Sirius finishes his cigarette, lights up another. He has Regulus half convinced the conversation is over, when he says, "Some things are worth dying for."

"Not him," says Regulus. It's out before he can't help it. "Not like this," he clarifies. "Not for nought. I chose survival. I thought, this way, we could both survive the war."

Always more silence, smoke, and laughter. "Then what changed?" says Sirius. "What happened to survival?"

_The war is never going to end, that's what_ , Regulus wants to say. _Not if I don't do this_.

"You've heard it all," he says.

"I heard it," says Sirius, and finally, he looks at him properly. "And I'm proud of you."

"Then you know what's going to happen now."

It's like Sirius flips a switch. "No, I _don't_ ," he shouts. "You have a plan, do you? You're about to do something very, very dangerous, of course you have a plan, you bloody Slytherin. You probably have three. So tell me. Tell me and _let me help_ , you wanker."

His anger is almost palpable, and Regulus reacts instinctively, retreats into the comfort of Occlumency, that cool, clear veil that settles over his emotions, that blanks his face and protects him from harm.

But Sirius isn't Voldemort, and he's not having any of this. "You _idiot_ ," he growls. "You complete bell-end, you tosser, you _snake_. I lost one brother to this idiocy. Don't make me lose another."

Indeed. Sirius isn't Voldemort. Because the Dark Lord could never see the Occlumency haze for what it was; would never assume that anything he couldn't see was worth seeing. Sirius knows where it hurts, and oh, it _hurts_. Regulus sinks forward, hands on his knees, lets his hair fall to obscure his face as he takes deep, heaving breaths. His penance, his reward: He will die, and one brother will watch. One brother will mourn him. There is no other way.

Then Sirius does something else that only he would do: Lays one hand on the back of his head, one over his heart, pulls him close like he's eleven and has forgotten how to breathe.

"Tell me," says Sirius. "Tell me what's wrong."

Leather. Cigarettes. Those god-damn Muggle smells, loss and oblivion. Regulus feels childish, with his head tucked underneath his brother's chin, and rising, familiar pressure, against his chest, behind his eyes. Like he's drowning. No: Like he's pulled out of the water.

But Regulus has spent so many hours just thinking about drowning, and he knows that what feels like someone pulling him out might just be him pulling someone in, and he can't let that happen.

Still.

He indulges. Lets himself believe that Sirius can save him, for five minutes, ten. It feels like a lifetime. But then, he's going to die in three days, so what does he know of lifetimes.

"Tell me," says Sirius again. "Tell me what's eating you." Regulus wishes he weren't speaking, so that he could enjoy the pretence a little while longer.

Still, there's the rushing in his ears, the sound of the sea, and he thinks _No_. This is not the time for his brain to betray him, to become overwrought and stupid with panic. It wasn't even him who drowned.

But the water is rushing in regardless, and he hears himself, in a voice that is small and breathless, like a child's: " _I don't want to die_."

"Then don't," says Sirius. "Don't die, okay? I'll help you. It's my best thing. I didn't die many, many times."

Somewhere within him, Regulus finds his last reserves of strength – or something else. Stubbornness, maybe. Pig-headedness. Love. Whatever it is, it allows him temporary respite, resolve, a single deep breath.

"I can't," he says. "I can't let you help, I'm sorry. You're the one who gets to grow old." And he extricates himself from this, he closes off, he rises from the bench and almost faints. Takes a step forward, and then another, and the water has him back.

"Please," says Sirius.

He doesn't turn, and he doesn't look back, gaze fixed on a group of trees. He's never tried Apparating in the middle of a panic attack, and oh _god_ , that's a risk, he should probably walk –

"Forgot something?" Sirius calls after him, and by then Regulus is muddled enough that he turns.

Ironic, really, that the thing that almost broke him – the hole in his life, the drowning, the panic – now almost saves him. He doesn't know how to summon the strength to resist his brother a second time, but he'll have to. Sirius still has his wand.

He's idly turning it in his hands, and despite the Muggle audience, he's making sparks fly, dance in the autumn air, form constellations, like he did when they were kids. Regulus's wand works perfectly for him.

Regulus makes the long trek back.

"Give that back," he says, when he's standing in front of his brother.

Sirius is sitting cross-legged on that wooden bench, lone but not broken: Surviving - and a memory comes up, unbidden, long forgotten: Sirius Black, twelve years old, on the pier in Blackpool, holding out a hand to a drowned child.

He's reaching for Regulus now. "Imagine," he says. "Imagine this is real. Imagine you can have this. Imagine you can run –"

Regulus reaches for him, too. In the wake of Sirius's surprised smile, he snatches his wand out of his brother's hand and Disapparates.

* * *

That night, for the first time since he was thirteen years old, Regulus sleeps without Dreamless Sleep Potion. All these years, it's made him less sad, less scared, has helped him survive – so what is the point of it now?

He dreams, and he dreams, and he dreams, like his brain is making up for lost time. He dreams of sandcastles and jellyfish, of dropped ice cream cones and stories whispered in his ears, of sunburn and laughter and two boys watching out for their baby brother.

And when he walks into the cave three days later, a piece of parchment in his pocket and his diary in the other, his scattered regrets are rounded up and ready for Voldemort's nightmare.

* * *

_Idiot._

_Idiot._

_Idiot._

_Idiot._

_Idiot._

_Idiot._

_Pot._

_Kettle._

_Black._

* * *

_To be continued._


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Note:** So here we go. Last part. Definitely the last part. No hidden chapters this time. Did I mention I wrote like six different endings? Well, this is number seven. It also got a bit… psychedelic 'round the middle, but that's what you get for just drinking any old potion Voldemort's left lying around, I suppose. Thank you so much for all your wonderful feedback! Writing this story has been very rewarding (and also, super intense, and creepy at times. As fun as the whole process was, I'm looking forward to having my brain back ^^) Looking forward to reading what you think, and feel free to correct my abysmal French.

" _After me, I think," said Dumbledore, and he walked through the archway with Harry on his heels, lighting his own way hastily as he went._

Joanne K. Rowling, _Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince_

* * *

 

_I used to think that when you died you kind of wandered the world in a slumber 'till you crumbled, were absorbed into the earth._

 Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, _Girl in Amber_

* * *

The summer Regulus turns five, his brother Altair nearly drowns in the Irish Sea.

Regulus's memories of that day are jumbled, scattered, a puzzle broken into too many parts. He remembers the eerie silence after the splash, when the sea turns smooth and flat like a mirror; stare down and a face stares back up - then rushing, screaming, buzzing, Sirius's raw magic outshining the summer sun. He remembers his Uncle Alphard shouting. _Today is not the day, Walburga_. He remembers Altair's robes drying off the side of the pier, a towel round his narrow shoulders, Muggle comfort for the Muggle changeling. He remembers his cousin Andromeda hugging him tight.

They all get ice creams after, and red lemonade. Regulus remembers drinking thirstily from his cup; it spills all over his hands and he cries. Curious, the things a child will remember.

Walburga tells so many anecdotes, but not this one. They will smile and eat canapés ("Remember when Sirius walked straight into a Thestral at the Somerset race?") or take a stroll along the seafront ("Just opened the gate and wandered off.") or taste rare whiskeys in front of the fireplace ("And little Regulus right on his heels, of course; nearly took a hoof to the face."). But she doesn't tell that one. She doesn't talk much about Altair at all.

When Regulus asks, she tells him it's not real.

* * *

The first time Regulus dreams of water is during the long, slow summer of 1969. One night in July, he wakes disoriented, exhausted, alone, and thirsty. Weird noises bounce all over Grimmauld Place, static and faraway voices jump from wall to wall, like skipping stones – disturbing the waters, he thinks groggily. No wonder he's awake.

It's usually a safe bet that any weird noises will have something to do with his brothers, so he goes to look for them. But Sirius is gone from his room, and so is Altair, so Regulus gathers all his courage and walks up the spooky narrow staircase to the roof of Grimmauld Place, taking great care to skip the two Vanishing steps. The door at the top opens with a creak.

They don't even look up. It's gone three in the morning, yet here they are, Sirius and Altair, fiddling with a weird, bulky thing. It looks to Regulus like a fishbowl got stuck in a box, and it seems to be the source of the noise. They're talking among themselves in low, excited voices.

"Can I play, too?" says Regulus.

Finally, his brothers startle, but it's just him after all. They look at each other, and then, annoyingly, they speak French, and Regulus only knows enough French to know they're talking about him. _Penses-tu qu'il peut garder le secret?_ says Sirius.– _Il garde toutes les secrets, Sirius-comme-l'étoile,_ says Altair _. Laisse-lui regarder._

"Sit down," says Sirius with a smile Regulus can't read – like he's sitting on the best surprise in the world. "Have a hot chocolate. And shut up, we've almost got it working."

"You've got it working all over the house," says Regulus. "The metal rails were singing at me."

"Whoops," says Sirius. "Guess the amplification charm was spread too wide…" He fiddles with the antenna. Below them, Grimmauld Place stops vibrating.

"Think that's it," says Altair. "Put some charge on the wires, and loop it round infinitely, that should do the trick." Altair has a frightening grasp on the mechanics of magic, for someone unable to do any. Regulus frequently forgets he's a Squib.

Sirius taps the box with his wand and an excited incantation. The screech of feedback almost deafens them, but then figures dance over the glass bowl, and a tinny, sonorous voice fills the air.

"What's this?" says Regulus. "What's happening?"

"Guess!" says Altair. He points at the moon above them without even looking, while he's fiddling with a rotary knob. "Something's happening up there!"

Regulus tears his eyes away from the fascinating fishbowl box to squint at the moon instead. It looks perfectly ordinary: A waxing crescent.

"Told you, we should have taken Father's telescope," murmurs Sirius, who seems disappointed he can't see what's happening on the moon with his own eyes.

"Let me catch you in his study again, and _I_ will give you a clip round the ears," says Altair. "Have you no sense of self-preservation?"

"Says the one who brought a Muggle telly into the house," says Sirius.

In Regulus Black's humble opinion, neither of his brothers has any sense of self-preservation. Besides. Muggle telly? Telescope? Moon? " _What_?" says Regulus. "What's happening?"

Sirius lays a friendly arm across his shoulders and whispers directly into his ear. "The Muggles are on the moon!"

That clears up exactly nothing. "The Muggles –" Regulus begins.

"They're walking on the moon!" says Sirius. "Well, in a bit," he concedes. "Unless something explodes, or, or, this telly contraption collapses into a black hole. Were you sure about the vacuum spell, Altair?"

"It's a cathode ray tube," says Altair. "It needs a vacuum."

"All right, all right, just pointing it out," says Sirius.

Regulus, however, is still stuck on their previous conversation. "But that's way too far to Apparate!" he says.

"They're Muggles, silly," says Sirius. "They can't Apparate!"

"Are they Flooing?" says Regulus. "No, that's impossible, you'd have to go there to build a fireplace. I know! House-elves! They can do amazing things, I bet they can Apparate there."

"Wanna ask Kreacher and find out?" says Sirius with a mischievous grin.

"They built a ship that can fly," says Altair, before Sirius can dare, double-dare, and double-dog-dare Regulus into doing something extremely stupid. Again.

Still. Something in Regulus's mind stubbornly refuses to wrap itself around the entire concept. "But they don't have magic," he says.

"They don't need magic," says Altair.

"You just said they built a ship that can fly!" says Regulus. "Like, _how_ –"

"…You're thinking of a sailing boat, aren't you?" says Altair. "It's a rocket. Like firework, just bigger. They fling it upwards with a giant explosion…"

Once again, Regulus feels left in the dust by an explanation from one of his brothers. "Oh, now you're just pulling my leg," he says.

"Shut up, shut up, don't question it, just look at the pretty pictures," says Sirius, who's had his ear close to the loudspeaker during their discussion. "It's starting!"

And Regulus sits, nested in-between his older brothers, sipping from a cup full of hot chocolate. As they watch Neil Armstrong take a step that is both small and giant at the same time, he feels his paradigms shift: Because the sky is not just a tapestry, a backdrop for his family to shine.

The sky is a thing he can _touch_.

* * *

"Whose idea was that?" says Orion the next day.

"Mine," says Altair. "I heard about the moon landing at – at school." He's not allowed to even mention the prestigious prep school he's attending. Chances are, in a few years, he's going to be the first Eton alumnus in history whose parents were too embarrassed to even sign the enrolment forms. Uncle Alphard had to fix it all.

"And who charmed that Muggle contraption?" says Orion. "Certainly not _you_."

"I did," says Sirius.

"I told him how," says Altair stubbornly. He hates seeing his genius ignored.

"That seems unlikely," says Orion mildly. Any other parent, Regulus thinks, might have been impressed by their brilliance – Altair understanding how cathode ray tubes work, Sirius charming one to pick up the moon landing - but Orion chooses to gloss over one kind of brilliance, and flips the other on its head.

"And who," says Orion, "sat down to watch, like an overly excitable Muggle?"

Altair and Sirius look at each other.

"We made him," they say, "We told him it's fun," they say, "We hid his stuffed dog on the roof," they say, "Please, Father, he's only eight."

Orion sighs, as if he can't believe he even has to concern himself with these mundane matters, Muggle antics, underage magic, and his sons' stuffed toys.

Maybe it's because Regulus is so very tired, after the night spent on the roof. Tired and thirsty and wanting to leave. His brothers are crowding him, as if to hide him, but he's small and slight enough to step forward through the gap they leave.

A small step, he thinks. A giant leap.

Then he thinks of powdery moon dust, of stark shadows and bulky white space suits, and he says, "I did."

* * *

_If they didn't want you to go the Gryffindor_ , reasons the Hat, _why would they name you for a lion?_

Regulus thinks about his answer for so long that the Hat threatens to put him into Ravenclaw just for that.

_Because they think the sky is theirs_ , he tells the Hat. _And the moon and the sun and the stars_. _All theirs. And no-one else can claim them._

_And you?_ says the Hat. _Do you think they're right?_

_Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, so there's that_ , thinks Regulus. _I'm thirsty, I'm tired, I'm done. Just pick a house and I'll go_.

The Hat is silent for a long, long time, until Regulus is tempted to just walk away, give this another go tomorrow.

_You're not done yet and I'm sorry_ , the Hat says eventually. _I know you're tired, I know you're thirsty. Know that, wherever you go, you will find water at the end_.

Another long pause.

_But you don't have to do it alone_.

* * *

The Hat is right. There's water wherever Regulus goes. It's over his head, suspended in the eternally overcast Scottish skies, under his feet in the rain-soaked grounds. It's in the walls, rushing through pipes. It's in the showers after Quidditch. It's in the frigid Black Lake where Sirius and James teach him how to swim. It's in his blood, and in his mind, and in his dreams, until he's thirteen and the Black family curse catches up with him.

_Idiot_ , says Sirius, and that's about it.

_Do you believe in fate?_ Regulus writes in a letter to Altair, later. _If we could go back to the start. If we could do things all over._ _Do you think there are some things we just can't escape?_

_I believe Divination is not for you_ , writes Altair from Eton. _I believe your path is shaped by your decisions, not the leaves in a teacup, or the movements of the planets, or the musings of a Sorting Hat._

_But I do believe in fate,_ Altair writes. _I believe we fight her with every decision we make. She fights back, and she fights dirty. So we fight dirtier._

They give Regulus Dreamless Sleep Potion so he won't feel like he's drowning all the time. So he won't have to gasp for air and push back against that terrible thing that compresses his heart. This potion is purple, tastes of blueberries and tea, a cup full by nightfall, every evening from now till he dies. A cup, and another, and another.

Some nights, it seems to turn into something else, Sleepless Dream Potion, he calls it. Those nights, he feels restless and unreal, like he's living a fictional life, an afterimage, an echo, where nothing fits or makes sense. He goes to the Black Lake, then, and skips stones on the mirror-like surface under the stars. Lupin is there sometimes, too, driven outside by his own monsters. They threaten to kill him, once a month, like clockwork.

Regulus tells him about Neil Armstrong, who walked on the moon, and it turned out to be just another rock.

* * *

_Fate takes on many disguises,_ writes Altair from Eton. _It'll knock and say, Remember me? But it'll look like an obligation, like a lack of choice, like a bad habit. Like apathy, for some. Like sacrifice, or love._

* * *

It's 1979, early November, and Blackpool is frigid at this time of year. On the end of the pier, where the open sea eats everything that isn't tied down, Regulus is almost done waiting. Around him, the sea roars, crashing relentlessly against the wood and the steel, soaking his robes and his hair and his skin. His lips taste of salt.

On the faraway beach, a figure peels away from the haze and walks towards him.

"You're late," says Regulus, in lieu of a greeting.

"You got here early," says Altair. He takes a good look around the place where he almost died as a kid. "On the whole," he says, "I think I prefer Brighton."

"Wasn't this your idea?" says Regulus. "At least it's safe. No-one to spy on us but the seagulls."

He looks his brother up and down, as if he's seeing him for the first time. Adulthood suits Altair, he thinks, even if it's still surprising to see him like this. The kind and clever boy, the storyteller has turned into a smooth chameleon, a liar, a trickster. Altair wears his Muggle things - his haircut and coat, his Eton schooling, his First from Cambridge – like armour, or camouflage.

"How's Downing Street doing?" says Regulus.

His brother shrugs. Neither the storm nor the water seem to be touching him. "I'm explaining the fallout from a magical war to people who are not supposed to know there's a war, or magic, or, frankly, a fallout," he says. "What a job! Been telling some pretty big lies."

"You'll be the youngest Minister for Magic in history," says Regulus.

"It'd be worth it just to see Mother's face," says Altair. "How have you been? How's the family?"

It's clear what he's asking. Altair hasn't been in contact with their parents ever since he turned seventeen. He's not interested in Mother's health, or how her devil's snares are doing.

"Bella is pushing for a decision," says Regulus, hardly audible over the roar of the sea. "I don't think I can string her along for much longer."

"And then what?" says Altair. "You'll tell her to go fuck herself and go into hiding?"

Regulus makes a face. He only _just_ got out of Hogwarts, after all.

"Grimmauld Place is safe," he says. "I'm the heir now, it'll protect me and Mother. I can sit it out, if I want to."

Altair gives him a crooked smile. "Sounds like a fate worse than death."

"Tell me about it," says Regulus. "I was thinking of playing along, to be honest. There's some things Bella said that were really odd –"

One thing about his brothers: The speed of their thinking can be quite terrifying. "You're willing to take the Mark because you're _curious_?" says Altair.

"She says he's immortal!" says Regulus. "I have no intention of putting up with this second-rate Grindelwald for another _year_ , let alone eternity –"

"Oh, Reg."

"You disapprove?"

"Seems to me," says Altair, his voice lighter than his expression, "that there's an X on your back no matter what. Might as well make it count. Speaking of idiotic, irresponsible recklessness, where's Sirius?"

"I don't think he's coming," says Regulus. "I nearly forgot to invite you, too; Cousin Andromeda had to remind me."

"I know," says Altair. "Memory like a sieve, that's our Regulus."

Regulus laughs. "Remind me why we're meeting again? Blackpool is terrible at this time of year."

"Oh, did Andy not tell you? It's your penance, and it's your reward," says Altair. The words tap at something inside Regulus, but he can't place it – again, he's forgotten, how can he forget _so many things_ -

Altair smiles. "Sit down, brother. Cast a warming charm. I brought a picnic; let's have a birthday party for our brother."

He opens his smart leather briefcase. Inside is a tartan picnic blanket, which he spreads over the wet, wooden planks, and the wildest assortment of edible things Regulus has ever seen. It looks like a child has assembled the picnic; scones and fruitcake and pumpkin pasties and pink petit-fours, every-flavour beans that have melted together, soft-boiled eggs and a bun that is sticky with butter and honey, gummi flobberworms and –

"Is that ice cream?" says Regulus.

"Pumpkin flavour," says Altair. "Personally I think it's vile, but I remember you loved it when you were a kid."

There are candles, too, twenty of them. Kneeling on the picnic blanket, Altair arranges them on the fruitcake, making it look like a knobbly, rainbow-coloured hedgehog.

"Think Sirius will like this birthday surprise?" says Altair.

"I told you, I don't think he'll come," says Regulus, and Altair laughs. Regulus laughs, too, even if he's not in on the joke. He settles next to Altair on the blanket, and casts spells to warm them up, to keep the wind and the water away.

"Altair," says Regulus, when he's done. "Altair, I'm thirsty. Did you bring something to drink?"

"Don't you want to wait for Sirius?" says Altair. "He'll be here any minute now."

"Altair, please," says Regulus. "I'm parched."

Altair looks at him with an unreadable expression. At this moment, he seems so very young again, a child. A sad one.

"Regulus," he says. "I know it's not your thing. But could I hug you? Just this once?"

Regulus shrugs. After all these years, he still doesn't get it – but with his brothers, he doesn't mind either way. Altair leans forward and holds him, surprisingly tight, and through it all - sodden robes, wet skin, damp hair – there's a warmth, a solidity, that shakes Regulus to the core. That someone could be so, so _alive_. So present. Is that the point of hugging? he muses. To know you're alive?

To know your brother is?

"Not long now, Reg," says Altair, but Regulus pays it no mind. He closes his eyes, allows himself to feel this. To learn it from heart. To remember it to the end: _Alive_.

"Altair, please," he says, when he can't take it anymore. "I'm thirsty; I'm dying with it. Help me."

Altair retreats, and Regulus feels the loss of it – the chill of a gap where there used to be life. His brother bends down to fill a cup with something from a thermos. Slowly. Dragging it out.

"I'm sorry," says Altair. "It's all there is."

Regulus expects water, or tea, but it's neither. Whatever it is, it's phosphorescent, a deep luminous emerald green, and it smells like something from the bottom of a lake - algae, and decay, and something poisonous, like cyanide. Altair presses the cup into Regulus's hands, and Regulus is thirsty, so thirsty, it's this or the water from the unruly sea.

"Drink slowly," says Altair. "Or better, not at all. It'll burn you."

Regulus raises the cup to his lips. As promised, it burns him, and he hesitates.

"Aren't you having any?" he says.

Altair shakes his head.

"If I could take this cup from you –" he starts. "I would. You know that, do you, Regulus? Sirius would, too. So take your time, Regulus, please do that for us - it's the last one. Just one more cup left. One more. Take your time, you're almost there –"

Almost –

* * *

_Idiot._

_Idiot._

_Idiot._

_Idiot._

_Idiot._

_Idiot._

_Pot._

_Kettle._

_Black._

* * *

Submerged, Regulus thinks of circles. Of periodicity, and of Arithmancy, of oscillations and echoes and full moons. Of things that return.

He returns to the water, and the water to him. _Did you know water does not compress under pressure? Air does, and so does earth. Fire burns hot, but it can be smothered. Water does not compromise._ It invades him everywhere at once, his mouth, his lungs, his eyes, his ears, every square inch of skin, every cell of his body, smothered and chilled and drowning. On his tongue the taste of metal and death. In his unwilling eyes, green underwater light, a cloud of red from the cut on his arm and _they_ come for it, for him, the only life in the cave, small encapsuled life and soon gone.

_Those winter nights are proper dark._ Now they reach out with their hands, now they grab his ankles, his wrists, now they pull and pull and pull, they must know which way is down because he lost track of it minutes ago. _I can't think of a better place for a son of mine._

And they pull and they pull, down, up, warm light like sunset over Blackpool, waiting for the stars to come out, _fire and brimstone. Who cares? You'll be gone._

Rocks scrape across his back and they pull and they pull and they fight over him and he finds it disappointing; he came here to drown, not to be eaten. And he came to drown quickly, not to gasp with his head in and out of the water, not to cough and claw and fight and _lose_ , his vision flickers, on and off, shadows dancing, too many regrets for too short a life. _This is your penance, and it's your reward._

His scattered self comes together, sort of, except he's still hallucinating, two cold fingers pressed against his neck and long, wet hair tickling his face, and a voice that says, _Nightmare?_

Or maybe it says, "He's breathing," and another voice says, in a happy sort of sing-song, "Told you."

_Here, this'll cheer you right up._ A ghostly shine seeps past his closed eyelids, and he thinks, quietly, _No_.

Altair did warn him. But Regulus panicked, and now he's a ghost, and he'll have to haunt the cave forever.

Righty-o. He accepts it with some sort of post-mortal calm: Should Voldemort ever come to collect his Horcrux, Regulus won't need a note. He can tell him himself. _You know what they say about a man with a big nose?_

The same fingers are on his face now, gently pulling his eyelids open. Light wanders over his field of vision, warm light, flickering light.

It's entirely possible the cave is on fire.

This is not quite how he expected his death to go, but he'll take it. His eye falls shut again.

"Reg," says that first voice. _Come with me, it's not safe here, it's not safe –_

"Ooh, let me, let me! It's been _ages_ ," says the second voice, _this abomination, this dead thing that couldn't even die properly._

That ghostly shine comes close, close, and then his entire ear freezes up in a cold breeze.

And that voice says, _Up, sleepy sloth. Meet me in five_. No, that other voice _shouts_ , " _WAKEY-WAKEY!_ "

Regulus can't help it. A jolt goes through him, a quake. He's five years old again, and someone's jumping on his bed. His head lolls to the other side.

"Merlin, what was in that potion?" says the first voice.

Cyanide, thinks Regulus. Arsenic. Aconite. Hemlock. And something nasty…

"Kreacher said it made him feel bad."

"Well, that's very precise. Let me try."

Close again, right next to his ear, but warm this time, warm and breath and life and _words_. "Reg. Reg? Wake up. Open your eyes. It's over. You're done here, you hear me? You've been brave. So brave. … Well, I don't know exactly what you did here, but it looks very –"

That child laughs. "You called him an idiot!"

"- well, it _looks_ very brave. But now it's time to run. Be scared, Reg, okay? Be scared one more time."

" _I'm_ scared!" shouts the second voice excitedly. "Look, it's very easy!"

"Good boy," says the first voice. "Listen to your oldest brother, Reg. Just survive today. Survive one more day. Tomorrow you can live."

Even if Regulus wanted to engage him, it feels near impossible. His lips move, his eyes flutter, but his limbs are heavy with death and regret, robes weighed down with freezing water and the blood from his arm.

"How's the fire doing?" says the voice.

"They're still scared of it," says the other.

"Not for long."

Then spells are woven all around Regulus, warm spells, dry spells. His robes grow lighter. The spells turn to curses when they find what he's done with his arm, where he's cut it to go through the door. Spells again, and it stops spilling.

"You bloody Slytherin," says the voice. "Don't leave anything to chance, do you? Always a backup plan. Well, fortunately for you, it runs in the bloody family."

Regulus's eyes fall open, more out of accident than anything else. They take long to focus, and when they do –

Of course. Of all his regrets, these two were going to linger all the way to the afterlife.

"Tell him, Altair," says Sirius. He is bleeding, too, but looking blissfully unconcerned. "Tell him how you saved him. Well, first tell him this _is_ a saving. I don't think I'm getting through."

"It was brilliant!" says Altair. "James's mum is so nice and so helpful!"

"I know, right?" says Sirius. "But maybe start at the beginning? When you told him to take you into the cave."

"Oh, that," says Altair. "But that was naughty. I lied!"

Sirius smiles at the edge of Regulus's vision. "He'd have been a Slytherin, you know, Reg. Like Andromeda. Like you. I never thought I'd say this, but," he coughs; despite the inappropriate cheer, he sounds chilled all over, "thank God for Slytherins."

On the other side, the little ghost comes closer again, but this time, Regulus is prepared. The chill doesn't quite go through to his skull.

"It wasn't the last piece," Altair whispers into his ear. "Sirius-like-the-star, he left with the other."

Regulus's lips move. His brain says nothing, but to his great surprise, his mouth says, " _What_."

"I told you it was the last piece of parchment," says the ghost. "The one you found in the study. But it wasn't!"

"Reg. _Reg_. Remember the night I told you who he was?" says Sirius. "I kept forgetting his name, so I wrote it on a piece of parchment… I was holding it when you pushed me into the fireplace… Thought I lost it after. Bad night for keeping track of my things." He laughs. "But the Potters never throw a thing away; it ended up in a box with… well, with some terrible photos. Suppose they can throw them out, now that Father's gone."

"Regulus-like-the-star, I told you to take me with you, so I could help you not become a ghost," says Altair, "and that was a big lie, I wouldn't know the first thing about that… Andromeda-like-the-galaxy, she told you to take me, too… I went into the cave with you, and then I ran from one page to the other, and I shouted and shouted for Sirius-like-the-star so I could tell him where you are, but he wasn't there… But James's mum was! So I introduced myself and asked her to call him through the fireplace but -"

"I wasn't home," says Sirius. "I was in Blackpool, on the pier. I waited three days and three nights. Andromeda and I hoped Altair would still be able to go there."

"So James's mum shouted at James through the fireplace," Altair says brightly, "and he knew how to talk to Sirius-like-the-star on the pier –"

"Mirrors," says Sirius.

"- and everyone was shouting and it was all very -" ghosts don't need to breathe, but maybe Altair's still adjusting, "- loud," he finishes.

"Goes to show it takes a whole village to save one idiot brother," says Sirius. "Good thing Voldemort enjoys a slow murder, right? Could have just planted a guillotine on the island. Didn't think of that, eh? Did you say something, Reg?"

Regulus has been moving his lips for a minute now, but no sound gets out that can be heard over their voices and the crackling flames.

Sirius bends down to listen, and Regulus manages to make himself heard. " _Neil Armstrong walked on the moon_ ," he whispers.

Sirius laughs. "You've been reading too many Muggle newspapers, brother."

Ah. So he's not quite dead yet. " _Kreacher?_ " he asks.

"That fucking elf," says Sirius. "Pissed off the second the Inferi turned up, didn't he."

Regulus exhales with all the air he has left, which isn't much. "Good elf," he says, so softly that even Sirius has to strain to hear him.

"And speaking of Inferi…"

Sirius springs up, taking a good look around. He obviously doesn't like what he's seeing.

"I think they're getting accustomed to the fire, they're really, really… active," he says. "Splashing about, sort of. Listen, Reg. I brought a broom. You remember flying, do you? I found they can jump quite high from the water. It'll be exactly like Vertical Quidditch. Except with zombies. You don't have to do a thing, you hear me? Just sit up and hold on. How's that sound?"

Frankly, it sounds ridiculous. Even lying down feels like a chore, compared to the cool weightlessness of the lake. But something is shaking Regulus from the inside out, and at first he thinks it's sobs. But no, it's laughter. It doesn't feel like laughter should feel, but it is what is it and he can't help it.

"What's funny?" says Sirius.

There's been nothing but regret in this cave, for Regulus. So maybe that's what allows him to speak: The greatest regret of all. The knowledge that he _must_ die, today, when he least wants to – that he will never know whether he did make up for his sins, after all –

He motions Sirius closer so at least he won't have to speak up. "You think I didn't think of this?" he says. "You think it never crossed my mind to fly? This is the man who cursed a teacher's post. You think he wouldn't curse a _door_?"

The long speech tires him, and he's coughing, and it tastes of blood and lake water and cyanide.

Sirius is still for a long, long time. Then he says, "We paid for our passage."

Regulus feels more exhausted than he ever has in his life, gravity pulling at his every fibre, and he whispers, "It's a one-way ticket, moron."

"Fucking Voldemort," says Sirius, who has never met the man and therefore has no idea how accurate his assessment is. "How much for the return, then?"

"How much do you _think_?" says Regulus.

Above him, Sirius finally, finally seems to appreciate the brilliance of the Dark Lord. "A death," he says. "Oh, that is _so_ like him."

Regulus shakes his head, which turns out to be a bad idea, in hindsight. His skull hurts all over from it. "Something better," he says. "Or worse. It marks a soul for departure. One soul. Just one. It's an old, slow curse… it'll take a day or two, but -"

"Brilliant," says Sirius. "Loads I can do in two days. Break's over, nerd. We're playing Quidditch." He grabs Regulus by the arms, manhandles him into an upright position so quickly he's seeing stars. But Regulus doesn't fall. Not that he has any say in it; Sirius keeps him propped upright, carrying the vast majority of his weight.

At first, Sirius's obnoxious high spirits just make him dizzy. Then, they makes him angrier than he has believed possible. "Sirius Black," he croaks. "Leave me alone, there's no _point_ -"

"Like you're an expert on what the point is," says Sirius. "Idiot."

"It marks a soul for departure," says Regulus, feeling like a broken record. "And it's not going to be _you_ , you fucking Gryffindor."

"Well, it's not going to be _you_ , you fucking Slytherin," snaps Sirius. "Not if I have any say in it."

"You _don't_ , idiot," shouts Regulus. He's not quite sure where the air comes from, or the energy, except he'll always have the energy to call his brother an idiot – especially now, when Sirius is still essentially holding him up, closer than he's been in years. It's just asking for a good shouting match.

"If you want a go with Voldemort's toys," says Regulus, "you'll have to play by his rules. It marks a soul on the exit, and no, you can't choose which. First one in is the first to go. It's written on the door, didn't you look?"

"Well, it was fucking dark!" shouts Sirius, before becoming very, very still. He looks at Regulus, and Regulus looks back.

"Yeah, and the runes were invisible," says Regulus. "I know."

"But that's you," says Sirius, in the voice of someone who is point-blank refusing to believe. "First one in, that's you."

Regulus steps back, a tiny, unstable step, so he can stand on his own, bear his own weight. Then, slowly, to not disturb the careful equilibrium of his still reeling body, he nods.

"No," says Sirius. "No, that's impossible. You got it wrong."

"Got an _Outstanding_ in my Ancient Runes N.E.W.T.," says Regulus. He tries a grin. "And people say it's an obsolete class."

Sirius doesn't laugh at his feeble joke. For once in his life, he seems thoroughly at a loss. The silence between them is cold, and it's terrible.

There isn't only regret in him, Regulus finds. There's softness now, too. Softness and heaviness and something that's light and fleeting. Too many things at once, whirling and rising up, up. He wishes he could build a bridge across this maelstrom, because words don't seem enough.

Still. "Sirius," he says. "Thank you for trying."

"I'm not _trying_ ," says Sirius, who seems to have found his voice. "I'm just not finished _doing_ it yet."

"Do what, Sirius?" Regulus says, as gently as he can.

Sirius opens his mouth to speak, to offer up a million possibilities – like he can carve a new door into Voldemort's cave, or find a countercurse in two days' time – but before he can speak, a third voice pipes up. "Can I tell you a story?"

Sirius's eyes do not leave Regulus's. "Not now, Altair," he says quietly. "This is important."

"It's a very important story," insists the ghost.

An echo whispers in Regulus's mind: _I do believe in fate... She fights back, and she fights dirty. So we fight dirtier._

_Oh, god,_ thinks Regulus.

They look at him, then. The ghost is sitting on a rock, legs dangling, undisturbed by cold and fire and the dead things from the lake. After all these years, he's still only just drowned, hair like seaweed and luminous water dripping from ever fibre. The beginning, and, alas, the end.

"Go on, then," says Regulus.

"Do you remember Blackpool? Before, I mean," says Altair, and they nod. At least, Sirius does. "Most years, we'd all go to Fleetwood, to visit the Haunted House –"

Regulus shakes his head. Now that Altair is speaking, the dizziness is back, the cold, the impending death. His thoughts are circling in on themselves, and the last thing he feels able to do is holding on to impossible things. "I'm sorry," he says. "It's still not –"

But Sirius nods again. "The dungeons?"

Altair beams at them. "The dungeons were where the sad ghosts were. The ones without fingers and toes. They would hardly come out at all."

"Wasn't it kind of dark in there?" says Sirius.

"So, so dark," says Altair. "Sirius-like-the-star, you wanted to jump down the trapdoor, but I said _no_ , I said – remind me – what did I say?"

" _I'm the oldest, I go first_ ," says Sirius. The simple memory makes him smile – until Altair nods, too.

"Yes," says the ghost. "I go first."

Despite all, Regulus is the first to realise. "No," he says. "No, that's impossible. You weren't even there when I stepped through the archway."

"I told you," says Altair, "when I first found you on the pier. Didn't you listen? _I'm water. I'm a light on the waves_. Think you're faster than light? Think I'd just let you wander into a scary old cave?"

It may be an indicator for the sort of day Sirius had, but when he finally catches up, he, too, says, "No." He says, "You're a _child_."

"I'm a soul," says the ghost, but he doesn't seem unhappy. In fact, today he's been happier than Regulus has ever seen him.

"Regulus-like-the-star asked me why I'm still here," adds the ghost. "Why I never moved on. Think this might be why? Think we can trick the door? I don't suppose the curse can kill _me_ ; I'm already dead!"

"So are the things in the water, and look at them," says Sirius.

"They're the opposite of me," the ghost states, thoroughly unconcerned with the Inferi creeping up on them.

"Exactly," says Sirius. "How do you think they came about? Think there might be something in here that _eats souls_?"

That's not how Inferi are made – Sirius is probably thinking of Dementors - and the prickly smart-arse inside Regulus wants to point it out, but no. Bigger things at stake. Besides, Voldemort is one inventive bastard. Would he truly rule it out?

Sirius takes a deep breath, then another, like he's inwardly counting to ten. Must be a new trick he picked up from his friends.

"Regulus," says Sirius, when he's done counting. "You're the resident expert for Voldemort's many fucked up perversities. Tell Altair this trick won't work. Tell him we'll find another solution."

_What other solution?_ thinks Regulus. _It's not like I haven't looked._ He wishes his mind weren't quite so thoroughly addled. He wishes he could give all this – the tragedy of it, the heaviness, the sacrifice, bloody _fate_ – his full attention. But right now, he's reading his own thoughts like pages in someone else's diary.

"The Dark Lord didn't prepare for a house-elf," he says, and it's the truth . "I'm willing to bet he didn't prepare for a ghost."

Regulus looks at the child, and thinks, _Sweet Dreams, Dear Child_. He thinks, _It's not sweet, and it's not a dream_. He thinks, _Fate. It'll look like sacrifice, or love_.

He thinks, _the Inferi are really coming quite close now_.

"Willing to _bet_!" says Sirius. "Well, I'm not! I fought so hard to remember him! I only just got him back! There has got be another way -"

The ghost jumps up from his rock and he advances, luminous and so terrible that Sirius side-steps to hold on to Regulus, shield him or be shielded by him, and good luck with either.

"Sirius-like-the-star!" shouts the ghost, as the Inferi creep up all around him. "You never got me back! _I am dead! I am gone forever!_ Our mother killed me when I was seven! And there's nothing you or I or anyone can do to change it!"

Sirius is silent for a long, long time. Then he says, "Yes, I know." His face is oddly blank, but the way he squeezes Regulus's shoulders tells him all about how well Sirius is taking this.

"I've had ages to think about it, and I'm glad you remember me now," says Altair. "But remembering is all anyone ever gets. I'm sorry."

"I know," says Sirius again. "I'm sorry, too."

"And you," says the ghost. "You're so alive. Regulus-like-the star, he's so alive. You're not good without him. And he – have you seen him? He's pretty dumb without you, too."

"Tell me about it," says Sirius. He even tries a smile. Only his fingers dig into Regulus's shoulder, as if he's never going to let go again.

"So that's how we're doing it" says the ghost. "Hop on the broom, I'll lead the way."

"And what if – what if you're wrong -" says Sirius.

"If the curse gets me? I'll move on," says Altair, and with that, he's back to normal: Timid. Scared. Childlike. "Would that be so bad?"

Sirius opens his mouth to answer, oblivious to everything except the ghost. Regulus pulls back, moving as if through molasses, but somehow he gathers enough momentum to crash into Sirius, push him away from a wandering dead hand protruding from the water's edge.

The Inferi are definitely getting used to the fire.

"I suggest we leave," he says.

"Regulus-like the star is right," says the ghost. "We need to hurry, or they'll eat you!"

Sirius just nods, unable to speak. He helps Regulus onto the broom, holds him tight as if Regulus were a lifeless puppet about to drop sideways, which, to be fair, is not too far from the truth. But Sirius's flying is impeccable, and they reach the archway in less than a minute, the ghost lighting the way.

"Altair-like-the-star," says Regulus.

"Yes?"

Nothing, thinks Regulus. Except someone should probably say something, because this is where the curse will mark one of them: On the exit. Now.

The Inferi are coming after them in staggering waves, so it'll have to be short. And Sirius doesn't do goodbyes, so it'll have to be Regulus.

"Nothing," says Regulus. "It's just – like-the-star. I've always liked that, you know."

Leaning against a wall covered in invisible runes, he watches Sirius open the door with an offering of blood, stony-faced and pale and resigned.

"I've watched the stars," says Altair. "For a hundred million years, I've watched them, and you know what?" He whispers conspiratorially, "The stars are like us."

The archway opens, and Sirius smiles, a brief, grim smile before he waves them all through.

They crash the broom on an unnamed beach far, far away from Blackpool, too exhausted to go on. A triangle: Stars above them, darkness behind them, and a shine on the water, a light on the waves.

An ending, a beginning, a miracle.

* * *

_The end_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Note 2:** I tried. I tried to stick to canon (that'd be the first and second ending I wrote, out of like seven). But I couldn't do it in the end. They already went through hell in this story, and enough is enough! If AU's not your thing, feel free to consider this chapter an add-on.
> 
> Please, if you got this far and enjoyed the story (hell, even if you didn't – though in that case, I admire your stamina), consider leaving a comment and tell me what you think – the good and the bad :)


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